"You don't believe in The Wisdom of Crowds, David? How shocking!"
I know that's a rhetorical question but ...
The intransigent Remainer viewpoint (as epitomised by the Guardian readers and some MPs) is ...
I think the majority got it wrong and as I'm a superior person who considers himself more intelligent than average (as do most people), my will should prevail.
Self-awareness has never been a characteristic of either type.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
The Tories took the electorate for granted, thinking Corbyn would deliver them a landslide. They won't think that next time. But for now they have lost control of the narrative. Their weakness, their incompetence and their delusion are the stories. They have to find a way to change that. David's point is that they will struggle to do so. I am inclined to agree - unless the economic outlook picks up and voters feel they have a stake in the status quo
On the other hand, the media might be more balanced. Whilst poor, the Conservative manifesto was not as bad as is being painted; as much as anything else, it was sold awfully.
The media thought a Conservative landslide was on, and that prediction was not a story. Instead, they examined the Conservative manifesto's entrails in detail, whilst ignoring Labour's. After all, where was the story in dissecting a widely-derided no-hoper ?
That will not happen next time. Since Corbyn's Labour could form the next government, expect the media to concentrate fire on it much more.
TLDR; the media had as much to do with the Conservative's poor performance as May's bodged manifesto or Corbyn's overperformance.
You must have missed the papers' anti-Corbyn front pages throughout the campaign.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
No, it really wasn't. There might be a good number who loved the idea of the Tories losing their majority to prevent a "hard Brexit". That does NOT mean they were in any way relaxed about the idea of Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn.
Some Tories here appear to be in denial. They're still on track for their landslide, albeit at the next election or maybe the one that follows.
I think the reason is that the fundamentals still haven't changed. Corbyn is still haemorrhaging support outside the big urban centres even as he piles up votes inside them. He's still rather dim and has associations with the far right that would definitely sink any other politician. He is still supported by a Shadow Chancellor nobody likes, a Shadow Foreign Secretary who doesn't know the difference between being an honorary colonel and being a member of the officer's mess, a shadow education secretary who is uneducated and a shadow defence secretary who would lose a match of tiddly winks. His party chairman also still has unanswered questions about vanishing union funds and his most important backer is being investigated for alleged ballot rigging. He is also still possessed of a mere three seats more than Brown was in 2010 while acting as if he's won the greatest landslide since 1997.
Indeed, in some significant ways the election has moved things in the Tories' favour. Labour have effectively conceded on immigration and even more astonishingly on benefit cuts (which their manifesto committed to keeping). They have also switched from offering help to the poorest to offering bungs for the middle classes (free school meals for all and free university tuition help the better off, not the poorest). It's hard to see that ending well for them. Claims their manifesto was costed do not stand up to scrutiny - they provided figures but as I repeatedly proved here their figures were based on a number of completely wrong assumptions (particularly around taxes on private schools which would have bankrupted the state sector, but also their figures on corporation tax which seemed to naively believe higher rates automatically equals more income). Under any leader other than Corbyn these concessions would have been absolutely disastrous. One of the more surreal things about this campaign was the way Corbyn, the supposed man of principle who cared about the poor, opposed violence and war (or claimed to, anyway) believed in fairness and would never pursue power for its own sake ruthlessly ditched all his principles in the naked pursuit of power.
Therefore, the most important thing is he's also old. It's hard to see an election before 2019. Will he really go through that again aged 70? Well, he's got a good diet, takes plenty of exercise and looks pretty fit to me. However, the older you get the less energy you have, and that will be doubly true if he spends that time fighting his own party. And no other leader will be able to get away with this, while inheriting a party still intellectually exhausted and politically divided.
For the reasons already discussed I don't see this bet because I cannot believe that the Tories will be crazy enough to go into another election led by Theresa. I don't see this government giving up power without having another go even if May's personal position becomes untenable. I don't see the DUP forcing an election because they can only lose seats from where they are now and they probably will. It is to me overwhelmingly likely that the next PM will be a Tory albeit one that may make Brown look long serving.
The result of the election was not much short of a disaster for the country. A weak minority government with a discredited leader has been left with the task of negotiating Brexit. Personally, I think the wisdom of crowds theory took a bit of a knock. But the government will just have to do the best it can.
You don't believe in The Wisdom of Crowds, David? How shocking!
You'll be telling us next that Parliament should have ignored the referendum result.
No, I don't think I will be saying that.
The government has to deliver a Brexit, frankly any Brexit now.
Those supporting the wisdom of crowds might make the case that the government will be pushed into a very soft Brexit by the government's weakness but personally I think a stronger government would have got there anyway for the reasons Hammond has articulated since the election and a weaker government is at greater risk of making an error that leads us where we don't want to go.
Teasing you, David, as I'm sure you realise - and also sending up some of the cruder populists on here.
Yes, it's any Brexit now. I'm less concerned than you though about the strength of the Government. There is little we can do now to control 'negotiations'. We are dependent heavily on the goodwill and good sense of the EU. I don't think it will be lacking, if only because it is in the EU's interests to be sensible. It doesn't want an angry and sulky little isand off its mainland coast.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
No, it really wasn't. There might be a good number who loved the idea of the Tories losing their majority to prevent a "hard Brexit". That does NOT mean they were in any way relaxed about the idea of Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn.
Yes it was! That's the whole point that you are in denial about. Corbyn got 40%! He had a coalition behind him. There were the true believers. There were many attracted to his policies and his campaign performance. But there were millions of people who saw him as a better, safer bet to a Tory majority.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
That depends on how the economy is performing.
I'm afraid that as much as you HOPE it dives there is a reality to be faced. We are drowning in debt and that situation must be addressed.
It will hardly take a genius to destroy Corbyn's argument that paying kids £10 per hour is a sensible idea.
Why would I hope the UK economy dives? I live here, I have kids here, I own a stake in a company that is based here.
I get why you want those who think this government stinks to be traitors who wish this country ill, but I'm afraid you do not own patriotism.
I've no idea why you mention patriotism but ho hum.
Its clear that if the economy dives (it won't) then you and the other Remainers can smugly say I told you so.
My point is that the tories will not make the same mistake twice, they alienated their core vote and allowed Corbyn to hand out freebies. Next time they'll move the agenda back on to the economy and Corbyn will be exposed.
Do you think £10 per hour for kids is a good idea?
I mention patriotism because you basically accused me of wishing the UK harm.
My point is that making the election about the economy when voters do not feel the economy is performing in their interests and you have been managing it for the last nine years may not be a slam dunk.
There does seem that for a fair number of tories on the site think all they have to do is change the leader, pander to the oldergeneration and slam Corbyn on economic competance and the next election will be a walk in the park. Even if they make a success of brexit they fail to recognise that they need to counter corbyn with progresive policies that address the real concerns of many people and look to the future rather than just slag him off. I've seen no one proposing and advocating these sort of policies without which they are going to be swept away by the popularism building behind corbyn and the left. Add in the real prospect of brexit being percieved a failure the belief it can be blamed on the EU will provide them a cushion just adds to the "head in sand" syndrome.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Its true, young people listen to Corbyn and May and believe him to be the safer/better option - why wouldn't they? Free uni, £10 per hour etc etc.
The tories have to counter that with reality instead of simply hoping kids don't bother to vote.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Its true, young people listen to Corbyn and May and believe him to be the safer/better option - why wouldn't they? Free uni, £10 per hour etc etc.
The tories have to counter that with reality instead of simply hoping kids don't bother to vote.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
And Lynton Crosby and Messina and the other grown-ups at CCHQ missed all this?
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
There does seem that for a fair number of tories on the site think all they have to do is change the leader, pander to the oldergeneration and slam Corbyn on economic competance and the next election will be a walk in the park. Even if they make a success of brexit they fail to recognise that they need to counter corbyn with progresive policies that address the real concerns of many people and look to the future rather than just slag him off. I've seen no one proposing and advocating these sort of policies without which they are going to be swept away by the popularism building behind corbyn and the left. Add in the real prospect of brexit being percieved a failure the belief it can be blamed on the EU will provide them a cushion just adds to the "head in sand" syndrome.
Yes, and they've buttered up the oldies for so long that they cannot now claim to be representing the young too. Now that the kiddies have figured out how to vote, and that voting does make a difference, the Tories have a real problem.
Sure, it can be turned around in time but it takes a lot of time to turn a supertanker around.
One interesting little Labour tidbit is that Unite is set to lose a seat on the NEC as under Champagne Len its membership has fallen so steeply. That means the notional non-Corbyn majority will increase by one.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
That depends on how the economy is performing.
I'm afraid that as much as you HOPE it dives there is a reality to be faced. We are drowning in debt and that situation must be addressed.
It will hardly take a genius to destroy Corbyn's argument that paying kids £10 per hour is a sensible idea.
Why would I hope the UK economy dives? I live here, I have kids here, I own a stake in a company that is based here.
I get why you want those who think this government stinks to be traitors who wish this country ill, but I'm afraid you do not own patriotism.
I've no idea why you mention patriotism but ho hum.
Its clear that if the economy dives (it won't) then you and the other Remainers can smugly say I told you so.
My point is that the tories will not make the same mistake twice, they alienated their core vote and allowed Corbyn to hand out freebies. Next time they'll move the agenda back on to the economy and Corbyn will be exposed.
Do you think £10 per hour for kids is a good idea?
I mention patriotism because you basically accused me of wishing the UK harm.
My point is that making the election about the economy when voters do not feel the economy is performing in their interests and you have been managing it for the last nine years may not be a slam dunk.
This is the issue that has to be addressed. Previous govts have spent far more than it has collected, Greece is an extreme example. Until or unless somebody has the bollox to address it the poorest people (you know, the ones you care about most) will suffer most. Low wages, high rents, expensive houses, too many people live here earning too little money.
Google Singapore for the route we should be taking.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
And Lynton Crosby and Messina and the other grown-ups at CCHQ missed all this?
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
DecrepitJohn's got it right. How any tories can seriously think for one moment that the economy is your strongest card is beyond me... but do please keep thinking it, it will lead to your decimation at the next GE!
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
And Lynton Crosby and Messina and the other grown-ups at CCHQ missed all this?
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
It is worth remembering Labour offered all of that on speed. Massive tax rises and massive increases in national debt coupled with the same brutal austerity for the poor. Because they were offering goodies for other demographics as well it didn't hurt them.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
The Tories took the electorate for granted, thinking Corbyn would deliver them a landslide. They won't think that next time. But for now they have lost control of the narrative. Their weakness, their incompetence and their delusion are the stories. They have to find a way to change that. David's point is that they will struggle to do so. I am inclined to agree - unless the economic outlook picks up and voters feel they have a stake in the status quo
On the other hand, the media might be more balanced. Whilst poor, the Conservative manifesto was not as bad as is being painted; as much as anything else, it was sold awfully.
The media thought a Conservative landslide was on, and that prediction was not a story. Instead, they examined the Conservative manifesto's entrails in detail, whilst ignoring Labour's. After all, where was the story in dissecting a widely-derided no-hoper ?
That will not happen next time. Since Corbyn's Labour could form the next government, expect the media to concentrate fire on it much more.
TLDR; the media had as much to do with the Conservative's poor performance as May's bodged manifesto or Corbyn's overperformance.
You must have missed the papers' anti-Corbyn front pages throughout the campaign.
No, I didn't. But it was mostly the papers you would expect to do so, whilst even the traditional Tory-leaning papers tore into the Conservative manifesto. And they could do so, as it was a story that would sell papers without the risk of Corbyn getting into power.
It is a myth that the youth turned out for Labour this year, in a way they didn't for Remain last year.
Labour did so well because they won very convincingly amongst the young, and the Conservatives lost amongst the 35-44 age group, and lost a good chunk of their female vote.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Its true, young people listen to Corbyn and May and believe him to be the safer/better option - why wouldn't they? Free uni, £10 per hour etc etc.
The tories have to counter that with reality instead of simply hoping kids don't bother to vote.
Or rather better, with a realistic offer to help.
To be fair to the tories, they have done more than just hope the young wouldn't vote - they changed the registration process too :-o
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have about Corbyn.
Some Tories here appear to be in denial. They're still on track for their landslide, albeit at the next election or maybe the one that follows.
I wouldn't say that. I'd just say that it's very hard to make predictions.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
One interesting little Labour tidbit is that Unite is set to lose a seat on the NEC as under Champagne Len its membership has fallen so steeply. That means the notional non-Corbyn majority will increase by one.
No, it means a Unite Corbynista will be replaced by a non-unite, born-again Corbynite.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
There had long been a Cash-Rees-Mogg-Redwoodite faction to the Cons. No BBG speech, no commitment to the referendum, no overall majority.
Now, was that an error?
As an, ahem, spirited Remainer, I can't say that it was. It was politics. Analagous to the LDs getting into bed with the Cons. They were in power and politics is all about being in power.
Of course the subsequent Remain campaign was cackhanded, but, as with the recent GE, the "situation: no change" message is not a very persuasive one when the people are restless.
FPT:
I'm being quite pedantic here, but I think Rees Mogg represents quite a different strand of the Tory right to Cash-Redwood.
Rees Mogg is an old fashioned High Tory whose beliefs bear a distinct resemblance to those of the pre-1832, or even 18th century Tory Party (at least in terms of attitude if not policy). That he is a Roman Catholic only strengthens the point - if you were to call him a crypto-Jacobite he probably wouldn't deny it.
Cash and Redwood are the ideological descendants of mid-19th century free trade, laissez faire Whigs/Liberals. I think Cash wrote a biography of Richard Cobden recently.
Or to put it simply: Rees-Mogg is a Cavalier, the other two are Roundheads.
I think they'd take umbrage at being called Roundheads. The Tory/Whig divide is closer.
Cash and Redwood aren't Whigs, they are Radicals. The Whigs are people like Paddy Mayhew and Micky Ancram.
Quite. And JRM is more Peel than Wellington. In fact every time I listen to him I think more of him.
A good man. He is the right wing equivalent of Corbyn. Only bright, godly and patriotic too.
Well-spoken does not equate to bright. Rees-Mogg speaks nonsense eloquently.
He is bright. The fact you don't agree with his politics does not make him an idiot.
"You don't believe in The Wisdom of Crowds, David? How shocking!"
I know that's a rhetorical question but ...
The intransigent Remainer viewpoint (as epitomised by the Guardian readers and some MPs) is ...
I think the majority got it wrong and as I'm a superior person who considers himself more intelligent than average (as do most people), my will should prevail.
Self-awareness has never been a characteristic of either type.
Well I am sure there are some who fit the stereotype you depict but the more normal response seems to me to be one of sadly accepting that a bad decision has been made and we just have to live with it as best we can.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Yep, we should walk away anyway. The electorate voted to Leave the EU, lets get on with it
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
There had long been a Cash-Rees-Mogg-Redwoodite faction to the Cons. No BBG speech, no commitment to the referendum, no overall majority.
Now, was that an error?
As an, ahem, spirited Remainer, I can't say that it was. It was politics. Analagous to the LDs getting into bed with the Cons. They were in power and politics is all about being in power.
Of course the subsequent Remain campaign was cackhanded, but, as with the recent GE, the "situation: no change" message is not a very persuasive one when the people are restless.
FPT:
I'm being quite pedantic here, but I think Rees Mogg represents quite a different strand of the Tory right to Cash-Redwood.
Rees Mogg is an old fashioned High Tory whose beliefs bear a distinct resemblance to those of the pre-1832, or even 18th century Tory Party (at least in terms of attitude if not policy). That he is a Roman Catholic only strengthens the point - if you were to call him a crypto-Jacobite he probably wouldn't deny it.
Cash and Redwood are the ideological descendants of mid-19th century free trade, laissez faire Whigs/Liberals. I think Cash wrote a biography of Richard Cobden recently.
Or to put it simply: Rees-Mogg is a Cavalier, the other two are Roundheads.
I think they'd take umbrage at being called Roundheads. The Tory/Whig divide is closer.
Cash and Redwood aren't Whigs, they are Radicals. The Whigs are people like Paddy Mayhew and Micky Ancram.
Quite. And JRM is more Peel than Wellington. In fact every time I listen to him I think more of him.
A good man. He is the right wing equivalent of Corbyn. Only bright, godly and patriotic too.
Well-spoken does not equate to bright. Rees-Mogg speaks nonsense eloquently.
He is bright. The fact you don't agree with his politics does not make him an idiot.
I tend to take a diametrically opposed view to Rees-Mogg on medical matters where his religious perspective always trumps the science. But he argues his case with coherence and passion. He is an excellent advocate and the House is the stronger for having him make his case.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
How many do you think it fooled?
I don't think the EU are fooled exactly. But as they clearly never intended to come to an agreement anyway to judge by their initial demands and continuing deranged posturing it doesn't make much practical difference.
Mr. P, inflation is barely above target having been lower than it, often by a lot, for years. It might not be so high had the Governor unnecessarily reduced interest rates to a new historic low.
The point on the exchange rate is entirely correct, except in that it suggests it's 'beginning' to show. The pound's fall happened long ago.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
There had long been a Cash-Rees-Mogg-Redwoodite faction to the Cons. No BBG speech, no commitment to the referendum, no overall majority.
Now, was that an error?
As an, ahem, spirited Remainer, I can't say that it was. It was politics. Analagous to the LDs getting into bed with the Cons. They were in power and politics is all about being in power.
Of course the subsequent Remain campaign was cackhanded, but, as with the recent GE, the "situation: no change" message is not a very persuasive one when the people are restless.
FPT:
I'm being quite pedantic here, but I think Rees Mogg represents quite a different strand of the Tory right to Cash-Redwood.
Rees Mogg is an old fashioned High Tory whose beliefs bear a distinct resemblance to those of the pre-1832, or even 18th century Tory Party (at least in terms of attitude if not policy). That he is a Roman Catholic only strengthens the point - if you were to call him a crypto-Jacobite he probably wouldn't deny it.
Cash and Redwood are the ideological descendants of mid-19th century free trade, laissez faire Whigs/Liberals. I think Cash wrote a biography of Richard Cobden recently.
Or to put it simply: Rees-Mogg is a Cavalier, the other two are Roundheads.
I think they'd take umbrage at being called Roundheads. The Tory/Whig divide is closer.
Cash and Redwood aren't Whigs, they are Radicals. The Whigs are people like Paddy Mayhew and Micky Ancram.
Quite. And JRM is more Peel than Wellington. In fact every time I listen to him I think more of him.
A good man. He is the right wing equivalent of Corbyn. Only bright, godly and patriotic too.
Well-spoken does not equate to bright. Rees-Mogg speaks nonsense eloquently.
He is bright. The fact you don't agree with his politics does not make him an idiot.
Rees-Mogg is clearly bright, I enjoy his wit and I admire his precise use of English. And yet there is something wrong about a man who clearly enjoys using his gift for language not just to communicate, but to set himself apart in a bizarre anachronistic pastiche of the upper class.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It is not enough to show your opponents are incompetent and/or dishonest and/or totally unable to keep the ludicrous promises they're making. That was proven up to the hilt against Corbyn, along with his links to mass murderers and Holocaust deniers. People knew but they didn't care. The key lesson of this election is that you have to offer something positive along with some razzmatazz to win. That should have been the lesson of Brexit and Trump too, but I will confess I missed it.
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
No, ydoethur is right. Purely negative campaigns do not work. To ydoethur's list of Trump, Brexit and, of course, GE2017, we can add Zac vs Sadiq in London and Scottish indyref where the unremittingly negative Better Together campaign (too poor, too wee, too stupid) squandered a huge lead until at the last minute the great clunking fist climbed back into the ring to put the positive case and save the union.
Tories here today are like Labour in the 1980s. If only the electorate realised X or saw the truth of Y. Worse, some are like faith healers: the patient died but that proves he did not start the superfood and cheese diet early enough. The attacks on Corbyn didn't work so we need more attacks on Corbyn. The press wasn't biased enough; the manifesto must be filled with bland lies; the leader needs to be more ... well, you get the picture.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
And Lynton Crosby and Messina and the other grown-ups at CCHQ missed all this?
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
According to various insider reports Crosby and Messina were sidelined until almost the last week when genuine panic broke out.
You're right, most Remainers still think the verdict was wrong, but they understand democracy. The ones who don't tend to be the self-elected elite who consider themselves to be superior. As you are neither an MP or a writer for the Guardian (as far as I know), you are innocent.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
The problem is that Brexit destroyed the Conservatives' position of safety first and economic competence. So when they went to the country, as they, did and said, would you trust Corbyn? They replied, we don't trust him any less than you. I don't see Conservatives rebuilding their credibility any time soon.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
How many do you think it fooled?
We will never know now. But, the Government certainly had plans to make it credible by publishing detailed contingency plans after the election.
And no deal is also bad for the EU too, but they're engaged in their own bluff too by implying they couldn't care less either way.
There had long been a Cash-Rees-Mogg-Redwoodite faction to the Cons. No BBG speech, no commitment to the referendum, no overall majority.
Now, was that an error?
As an, ahem, spirited Remainer, I can't say that it was. It was politics. Analagous to the LDs getting into bed with the Cons. They were in power and politics is all about being in power.
Of course the subsequent Remain campaign was cackhanded, but, as with the recent GE, the "situation: no change" message is not a very persuasive one when the people are restless.
FPT:
I'm being quite pedantic here, but I think Rees Mogg represents quite a different strand of the Tory right to Cash-Redwood.
Rees Mogg is an old fashioned High Tory whose beliefs bear a distinct resemblance to those of the pre-1832, or even 18th century Tory Party (at least in terms of attitude if not policy). That he is a Roman Catholic only strengthens the point - if you were to call him a crypto-Jacobite he probably wouldn't deny it.
Cash and Redwood are the ideological descendants of mid-19th century free trade, laissez faire Whigs/Liberals. I think Cash wrote a biography of Richard Cobden recently.
Or to put it simply: Rees-Mogg is a Cavalier, the other two are Roundheads.
I think they'd take umbrage at being called Roundheads. The Tory/Whig divide is closer.
Cash and Redwood aren't Whigs, they are Radicals. The Whigs are people like Paddy Mayhew and Micky Ancram.
Quite. And JRM is more Peel than Wellington. In fact every time I listen to him I think more of him.
A good man. He is the right wing equivalent of Corbyn. Only bright, godly and patriotic too.
Well-spoken does not equate to bright. Rees-Mogg speaks nonsense eloquently.
He is bright. The fact you don't agree with his politics does not make him an idiot.
Rees-Mogg is clearly bright, I enjoy his wit and I admire his precise use of English. And yet there is something wrong about a man who clearly enjoys using his gift for language not just to communicate, but to set himself apart in a bizarre anachronistic pastiche of the upper class.
Yes, but come on, that is quite entertaining and endearing as well.
If the great hopes of the Conservative party are Graham Brady and Jacob Cream Crackers, they're in deeper trouble than I thought.
My suggestion from the outside would be that they look in the medium term to promote those who spend less time frothing about the evils of the EU and more time talking about how the government can improve the lives of the electorate. Admittedly, right now that might be a very short list indeed.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
snip
That's why there seems a frighteningly high chance Boris could be the next PM, something I would cheerfully have laughed at a mere 17 days ago.
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Its true, young people listen to Corbyn and May and believe him to be the safer/better option - why wouldn't they? Free uni, £10 per hour etc etc.
The tories have to counter that with reality instead of simply hoping kids don't bother to vote.
Or rather better, with a realistic offer to help.
I tend to side with MarqueeMark. I think a lot of people did vote Labour despite Corbyn. They thought they were stopping a massive May landslide and supporting their local Labour guy.
The next GE will be more traditional I suspect. In the sense that either side will be seen to be capable of winning and so it will be a campaign back on economics and public services and not all this Queen May bs.
Then again, there might be two new parties by then. A centre Progressive Democrats and Farage's new far right vehicle.
Mr. P, inflation is barely above target having been lower than it, often by a lot, for years. It might not be so high had the Governor unnecessarily reduced interest rates to a new historic low.
The point on the exchange rate is entirely correct, except in that it suggests it's 'beginning' to show. The pound's fall happened long ago.
Indeed so. The pound has been reasonably stable for 6 months plus now, with a slight blip on June 9th. Most of the inflationary effects of the fall are already in the system and many will start to drop out of the year on year by the Autumn.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
You may disagree. But you need to get your head around this. To me and many others the Conservative position was utterly toxic. It needed to be stopped.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
And Lynton Crosby and Messina and the other grown-ups at CCHQ missed all this?
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
DecrepitJohn's got it right. How any tories can seriously think for one moment that the economy is your strongest card is beyond me... but do please keep thinking it, it will lead to your decimation at the next GE!
Competitive advantage.
Countering the balls about taxing the rich by showing how much the tax take rises when tax rates are cut, taking so many millions out of tax.
The Tories are far and away better than Labour on understanding the economy. Make it about aspiration (and especially houses) for young professionals (the oldies won't vote for Corbyn) and we get a majority.
Funniest moment of this morning is seeing th supposed Labour moderates cheering for Corbyn despite him not being able to win an election against the weakest Tory campaign for generations....
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Yes - the government told voters it was prepared to inflict catastrophic, long-term harm on the UK economy. Voters did not buy it, thankfully.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
You may disagree. But you need to get your head around this. To me and many others the Conservative position was utterly toxic. It needed to be stopped.
Can you explain why we should get our heads around your thinking when you didn't like Corbyn, but now sort of do because he slightly improved on Brown's failure?
You're right, most Remainers still think the verdict was wrong, but they understand democracy. The ones who don't tend to be the self-elected elite who consider themselves to be superior. As you are neither an MP or a writer for the Guardian (as far as I know), you are innocent.
Sorry, CD, but I can't cope with your use of the word 'democracy'.
My understanding of it is conditioned by the modern Western society in which I live, and involves electing representatives to govern for you in your own best interests. Government by referendum is not democracy. It is something else, and in the context of the EU vote I should say it was principally a shirking of parliamentary responsibility and an attempt by the Conservative Party to resolve certain internal issues.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
Maybe but ask yourself why the Conservatives did not campaign on the economy this time. Ask why there were no costings in the manifesto; why the Chancellor was hidden away. Even if you are right that Labour is weak here, clearly CCHQ knows the Conservatives are vulnerable too.
You're totally wrong on this.
May's team thought she was coasting to victory and wanted to claim all the credit.
Make it an election on the economy and she couldn't sack Hammond.
Boy was that a bad call
I totally agree with this. The Tories were so confident that Corbyn was unelectable they thought that they didn't need to play their strongest card. The fact that would have involved giving some credit, arguably a lot of credit to Osborne for his management of the economy probably made May even less keen. Her petty vindictiveness, firstly towards Osborne and then towards Hammond cost her very dear.
The problem is that Brexit destroyed the Conservatives' position of safety first and economic competence. So when they went to the country, as they, did and said, would you trust Corbyn? They replied, we don't trust him any less than you. I don't see Conservatives rebuilding their credibility any time soon.
Don't agree. Brexit makes competent economic management more important not less. We will have a broader range of choices. Whether that turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing will depend on what choices we made.
One of the reasons that Corbyn was always lukewarm about the EU, for example is that his nationalisation preference was not compliant with EU law. That is a choice we could make after Brexit that is not currently open to us.
But for Corbyn to be next PM implies May fights the next GE as Con leader - unless Con loses the Queens Speech vote next week and Corbyn immediately takes over as a Minority Government without another GE.
Now, it's very possible - indeed quite likely - that Con will allow May to continue as PM for quite some time so as to avoid changing leader during the Brexit negotiations.
But surely there is almost no chance that Con would allow May to then go on to fight the next GE as leader.
The next GE could come about quite suddenly though given the Parliamentary arithmetic, particularly if the DUP decide not to play ball.
The one hope for the Tories would be that the government falls and is seen to fall because the opposition parties are trying to frustrate Brexit. Unless public opinion changes significantly between now and then (not impossible), that could be a powerful card for the Conservative Party to play.
Don't overestimate the popularity of Brexit, Duggie.
It's true that most want the Government to go ahead with it but that includes a chunk of people like me who are arch-Remainers but don't see any merit in trying to reverse back out of it now.
That's right. In fact I wanted Article 50 invoked the day after the vote so the campaign to rejoin could start sooner.
There was no reason why it should not have been invoked immediately.
Cameron's decision not to prepare?
Lack of clarity on need for Parliamentary approval?
You're right, most Remainers still think the verdict was wrong, but they understand democracy. The ones who don't tend to be the self-elected elite who consider themselves to be superior. As you are neither an MP or a writer for the Guardian (as far as I know), you are innocent.
Sorry, CD, but I can't cope with your use of the word 'democracy'.
My understanding of it is conditioned by the modern Western society in which I live, and involves electing representatives to govern for you in your own best interests. Government by referendum is not democracy. It is something else, and in the context of the EU vote I should say it was principally a shirking of parliamentary responsibility and an attempt by the Conservative Party to resolve certain internal issues.
My understanding of democracy is that parliament should carry out the wishes of the majority of the electorate, not treat them with contempt. In fairness to Cameron he agrees with me which is why he resigned.
Can you explain why we should get our heads around your thinking when you didn't like Corbyn, but now sort of do because he slightly improved on Brown's failure?
Corbyn deserves all our thanks for stopping an ideological Tory Brexit. She denied May her blank cheque.
We're heading for something more cross-party, more pragmatic and that prioritises the economy over ideology.
There had long been a Cash-Rees-Mogg-Redwoodite faction to the Cons. No BBG speech, no commitment to the referendum, no overall majority.
Now, was that an error?
As an, ahem, spirited Remainer, I can't say that it was. It was politics. Analagous to the LDs getting into bed with the Cons. They were in power and politics is all about being in power.
Of course the subsequent Remain campaign was cackhanded, but, as with the recent GE, the "situation: no change" message is not a very persuasive one when the people are restless.
FPT:
I'm being quite pedantic here, but I think Rees Mogg represents quite a different strand of the Tory right to Cash-Redwood.
Rees Mogg is an old fashioned High Tory whose beliefs bear a distinct resemblance to those of the pre-1832, or even 18th century Tory Party (at least in terms of attitude if not policy). That he is a Roman Catholic only strengthens the point - if you were to call him a crypto-Jacobite he probably wouldn't deny it.
Cash and Redwood are the ideological descendants of mid-19th century free trade, laissez faire Whigs/Liberals. I think Cash wrote a biography of Richard Cobden recently.
Or to put it simply: Rees-Mogg is a Cavalier, the other two are Roundheads.
I think they'd take umbrage at being called Roundheads. The Tory/Whig divide is closer.
Cash and Redwood aren't Whigs, they are Radicals. The Whigs are people like Paddy Mayhew and Micky Ancram.
Quite. And JRM is more Peel than Wellington. In fact every time I listen to him I think more of him.
A good man. He is the right wing equivalent of Corbyn. Only bright, godly and patriotic too.
Well-spoken does not equate to bright. Rees-Mogg speaks nonsense eloquently.
He is bright. The fact you don't agree with his politics does not make him an idiot.
Rees-Mogg is clearly bright, I enjoy his wit and I admire his precise use of English. And yet there is something wrong about a man who clearly enjoys using his gift for language not just to communicate, but to set himself apart in a bizarre anachronistic pastiche of the upper class.
Yes, but come on, that is quite entertaining and endearing as well.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Consumer debt and immigration have been keeping the UK economy going.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Yes - the government told voters it was prepared to inflict catastrophic, long-term harm on the UK economy. Voters did not buy it, thankfully.
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice. The next election will again be on the economy and Corbyn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
You may disagree. But you need to get your head around this. To me and many others the Conservative position was utterly toxic. It needed to be stopped.
Why? You're a core Labour voter. You'd never vote Conservative in a month of Sundays.
If you could show me a case for how it failed massively with floating voters, I'd listen.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
How many do you think it fooled?
We will never know now. But, the Government certainly had plans to make it credible by publishing detailed contingency plans after the election.
And no deal is also bad for the EU too, but they're engaged in their own bluff too by implying they couldn't care less either way.
Yes, I agree no deal is bad for them too, which is why I think there will be a deal, but they have less to fear than us. There are 27 of them for a start, so they can spread the cost around a bit.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
I agree, my point is that Remainers link everything (Grenfell, terrorism, inflation) with Brexit.
Its bollox and they know it, which is why they resort to Guardian opinions as opposed to facts already pointed out.
As a country and individuals we're obsessed by borrowing, it has to stop.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Thanks as ever for the hard data driven insight.
I'm convinced there is a consumer driven recession coming, too. We're getting way more estate agents putting leaflets through our door asking for houses to sell. I'm seeing far fewer cars on the roads in. Evenings and weekends, and the little high street where I have a shop is slower than ever. The weak pound and tourism will help (in fact both are already helping me), but they won't replace domestic consumption at all.
My admittedly short experience of witnessing projections of recessions and then actual recessions makes me feel that recessions lag behind predictions of them. Maybe we're ok for another year?
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Consumer debt and immigration have been keeping the UK economy going.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle.
Autocorrect sucks, doesn't it?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
Seriously CR, you would do well to come to terms that people legitimately feel like this. The Tory macho posturing on negotiating positions was not only bullshit, it was toxic.
Try to understand how it might have looked to people who do not trust the tories. There were no reassuring words whatsoever.
Since you trust the Tories, it didn't matter to you. But the hard line they took (and to an extent continue to take) was polarizing.
Yay! I have got to 100 posts and nobody has accused me of being a johnny-come-lately momentum-stooge clictavist (yet)! I'm only 53,000 and something behind TSE now.
Thank-you PBers for the great site and thought-provoking debate!
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
Seriously CR, you would do well to come to terms that people legitimately feel like this. The Tory macho posturing on negotiating positions was not only bullshit, it was toxic.
Try to understand how it might have looked to people who do not trust the tories. There were no reassuring words whatsoever.
Since you trust the Tories, it din't matter to you. But the hard line they took (and to an extent continue to take) was polarizing.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle.
Autocorrect sucks, doesn't it?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle.
Autocorrect sucks, doesn't it?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle.
Autocorrect sucks, doesn't it?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
A viscous cycle is somehow quite appropriate though.
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
Seriously CR, you would do well to come to terms that people legitimately feel like this. The Tory macho posturing on negotiating positions was not only bullshit, it was toxic.
Try to understand how it might have looked to people who do not trust the tories. There were no reassuring words whatsoever.
Since you trust the Tories, it din't matter to you. But the hard line they took (and to an extent continue to take) was polarizing.
Toxic to the extent that we got 14m votes...
Toxic to the extent it was a recruiting sergeant for your opponent, pushed them over 40% and denied you a majority.
Corbyn's latest wacko byn's lala land promises will be examined in greater detail.
He's an egotistic campaigner who can promise the world but in a drawn out campaign he'll be exposed.
One of the the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Yes - the government told voters it was prepared to inflict catastrophic, long-term harm on the UK economy. Voters did not buy it, thankfully.
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
In other words, you disagree with me.
Excluding the UK from all agreements of which we are a part thanks to our EU membership, while significantly increasing the cost of doing business in our biggest export market, would inflict huge, long-lasting damage to the economy and living standards. I know you don't want that to be true, but it is, I'm afraid.
Only briefly in the 1970s did I vote for a party that went into government. Mostly, the elected government represented the country's viewpoint not mine. Fair enough. I believed anti-Maggie demonstrations were the act of spoilt children.
Most Remainers are adults. If Parliament doesn't represent the country on major issues (the death penalty was a minor issue, making murder legal would be a major issue), the problem lies with them, not the voters.
Yay! I have got to 100 posts and nobody has accused me of being a johnny-come-lately momentum-stooge clictavist (yet)! I'm only 53,000 and something behind TSE now.
Thank-you PBers for the great site and thought-provoking debate!
Make an intelligent point from any direction and people will react accordingly. Please keep contributing.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle.
Autocorrect sucks, doesn't it?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
!!!!!!!
It isn't as though she worked for Northern Rock either. This was at Lloyds!
This is the issue that has to be addressed. Previous govts have spent far more than it has collected, Greece is an extreme example. Until or unless somebody has the bollox to address it the poorest people (you know, the ones you care about most) will suffer most. Low wages, high rents, expensive houses, too many people live here earning too little money.
Google Singapore for the route we should be taking.
The secret of Singapore is the same secret of all the other great exporting powerhouses: Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, China and Hong Kong.
What do they all have in common? Low regulation? Not really, Germany and Switzerland are high regulation countries.
The answer is high savings rates.
Singapore's household savings ratio is 24%. Switzerland's is 19%. China is 28%. Hong Kong is 14%. Germany is 10%.
We're at 3%. That's basically an all time low. That's why you should be very, very concerned about the medium term outlook for the UK. Almost all recessions are a consequence of changes in the savings rate. And the long-term equilibrium level for the UK is about 11%. To go from 3% to 11% would involve a recession on the scale of 1990-1992. And economies typically overshoot. If we were to go to 15%, that would be the worst recession in the UK since the 1930s.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Thanks as ever for the hard data driven insight.
I'm convinced there is a consumer driven recession coming, too. We're getting way more estate agents putting leaflets through our door asking for houses to sell. I'm seeing far fewer cars on the roads in. Evenings and weekends, and the little high street where I have a shop is slower than ever. The weak pound and tourism will help (in fact both are already helping me), but they won't replace domestic consumption at all.
My admittedly short experience of witnessing projections of recessions and then actual recessions makes me feel that recessions lag behind predictions of them. Maybe we're ok for another year?
That would be handy, ahem.
I do agree that we cannot run on consumer credit for ever. There was good news about manufacturing yesterday, particularly in relation to exports. The hope has to be that the EZ continues to pick up and we improve our export position enough to offset any slow down in consumption. The great British consumer has been keeping the EU afloat on its own for too long.
The Brexit powers and the Tory offering on trade, immigration, fisheries and agriculture, might be quite popular in GE2022 under a new leader, particularly if the economy picks up.
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
And, yet, manufacturing orders are at their highest in almost 30 years, unemployment is at a 40-year low, the FTSE is clocking record highs, and the economy is still growing.
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
Errh, you do realise that when a tory is quoting a Guardian comment they're scraping the barrel. I wouldn't bother replying tbh.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation. So far, that's not tipped the economy into recession because (a) business has made up some of the slack, and (b) the UK consumer is willing to borrow to maintain spending.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
Consumer debt and immigration have been keeping the UK economy going.
Ye Gods
You might want to read the government figures and projections that were published with the last budget.
Scott is not right about a lot, but he's correct that the UK economy is flirting dangerously close to a consumer led recession. Income growth is now below inflation.
And about Radiohead.
Clearly I will need to write a couple of thread headers on music to give some PBers remedial education.
Only briefly in the 1970s did I vote for a party that went into government. Mostly, the elected government represented the country's viewpoint not mine. Fair enough. I believed anti-Maggie demonstrations were the act of spoilt children.
Most Remainers are adults. If Parliament doesn't represent the country on major issues (the death penalty was a minor issue, making murder legal would be a major issue), the problem lies with them, not the voters.
There is a fairly obvious response to that, in that we elect politicians and if they do not represent our views we can and should cease to elect them. As Gerard DeGroot so rightly said, governments in a democratic system are not isolated beings that are not representative.
The key problem about Europe is and has been for years that most people are antipathetic or hostile to it in this country, as the referendum demonstrated, but for all bar a noisy minority on both sides it is actually a very minor issue. That is why Blair spent years on fox hunting and no time at all really trying to sort out the EU or the railway network. The former swayed votes, amazingly, and the latter two didn't.
No election has ever been won or lost on Europe, as 2017 so graphically demonstrates. Domestic issues are crucial.
This is the issue that has to be addressed. Previous govts have spent far more than it has collected, Greece is an extreme example. Until or unless somebody has the bollox to address it the poorest people (you know, the ones you care about most) will suffer most. Low wages, high rents, expensive houses, too many people live here earning too little money.
Google Singapore for the route we should be taking.
The secret of Singapore is the same secret of all the other great exporting powerhouses: Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, China and Hong Kong.
What do they all have in common? Low regulation? Not really, Germany and Switzerland are high regulation countries.
The answer is high savings rates.
Singapore's household savings ratio is 24%. Switzerland's is 19%. China is 28%. Hong Kong is 14%. Germany is 10%.
We're at 3%. That's basically an all time low. That's why you should be very, very concerned about the medium term outlook for the UK. Almost all recessions are a consequence of changes in the savings rate. And the long-term equilibrium level for the UK is about 11%. To go from 3% to 11% would involve a recession on the scale of 1990-1992. And economies typically overshoot. If we were to go to 15%, that would be the worst recession in the UK since the 1930s.
I understand the correlation, but don't get the causation. How does high savings rate help? Is it merely an indicator?
Corbyn's latest wacko plan is to pay teenagers £10 per hour. Its an obvious remarek that the tories spectacularly messed up the snap election campaign but they won't make the same mistake twice.
One of the great images of the 2008 local elections was John Macdonnell with his head in his hands as James Purnell spouted that same line about Cameron's party. Purnell himself later effectively admitted the line was rubbish by resigning the following year.
It
I'd argue that people didn't care because they didn't see a cat in hell's chance of him becoming PM. No-one did - until the exit poll.
2017 was the election where the safe assumption was somebody else would be voting to keep Corbyn out, so I don't have to. Very nearly an Oooooops.... there from the electorate.
You are in denial. What you need to get your head around is for many Corbyn was seen as the safer option than a Tory Majority.
safer option? do you really believe that ?
Yes. Absolutely.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have had about Corbyn.
Yep - No Deal is better than a Bad Deal promised to inflict huge and longlasting damage to the UK economy. A government actively proposing such a prospect was showing itself to be utterly irresponsible and profoundly stupid.
Nonsense. It was part of strengthening the UK's negotiating position by making it clear the Government was prepared to walk away.
Yep, we should walk away anyway. The electorate voted to Leave the EU, lets get on with it
Fine, all those trade and travel agreements torn up? The French impose full blocks on the chunnel and ferries - How far past London do you want to see the trucks pile up on the roads. As for export controls from the EU to a country which does not have any valid diplomatic ties, yep, that's going to work very well? Then there are all those horrible Europeans, having to go home leaving our hospitals, nursing homes and carers understaffed, so if you end up in hospital or in care, there will be no one to wipe your backside. Yeah, go ahead, you walk away....
I'm curious as to what issue will cause the DUP to try to bring the Tories down and which will also gather the support of the SNP and Lib Dems.
Who knows. Probably something to do with money or a minister doing something stupid.
If a minister does something more stupid than Arlene Foster the government will have to go anyway.
A bolder move by Corbyn would be the offer of a unilateral restoration of Stormont with the abandonment of power sharing, leaving the DUP in sole charge of Ulster. It would of course be a rather radical departure for a man who was arrested at a riot in support of Patrick Macgee, but it would be less damaging in many ways and certainly less surprising than his sudden support for hard Brexit, zero immigration and swingeing benefit cuts.
You overstate your case. No deal would certainly be very disruptive, but it would not be catastrophic.
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
Seriously CR, you would do well to come to terms that people legitimately feel like this. The Tory macho posturing on negotiating positions was not only bullshit, it was toxic.
Try to understand how it might have looked to people who do not trust the tories. There were no reassuring words whatsoever.
Since you trust the Tories, it din't matter to you. But the hard line they took (and to an extent continue to take) was polarizing.
Toxic to the extent that we got 14m votes...
And pushed Labour to their second-highest total in 50 years. Under Corbyn.
Comments
"You don't believe in The Wisdom of Crowds, David? How shocking!"
I know that's a rhetorical question but ...
The intransigent Remainer viewpoint (as epitomised by the Guardian readers and some MPs) is ...
I think the majority got it wrong and as I'm a superior person who considers himself more intelligent than average (as do most people), my will should prevail.
Self-awareness has never been a characteristic of either type.
Indeed, in some significant ways the election has moved things in the Tories' favour. Labour have effectively conceded on immigration and even more astonishingly on benefit cuts (which their manifesto committed to keeping). They have also switched from offering help to the poorest to offering bungs for the middle classes (free school meals for all and free university tuition help the better off, not the poorest). It's hard to see that ending well for them. Claims their manifesto was costed do not stand up to scrutiny - they provided figures but as I repeatedly proved here their figures were based on a number of completely wrong assumptions (particularly around taxes on private schools which would have bankrupted the state sector, but also their figures on corporation tax which seemed to naively believe higher rates automatically equals more income). Under any leader other than Corbyn these concessions would have been absolutely disastrous. One of the more surreal things about this campaign was the way Corbyn, the supposed man of principle who cared about the poor, opposed violence and war (or claimed to, anyway) believed in fairness and would never pursue power for its own sake ruthlessly ditched all his principles in the naked pursuit of power.
Therefore, the most important thing is he's also old. It's hard to see an election before 2019. Will he really go through that again aged 70? Well, he's got a good diet, takes plenty of exercise and looks pretty fit to me. However, the older you get the less energy you have, and that will be doubly true if he spends that time fighting his own party. And no other leader will be able to get away with this, while inheriting a party still intellectually exhausted and politically divided.
Yes, it's any Brexit now. I'm less concerned than you though about the strength of the Government. There is little we can do now to control 'negotiations'. We are dependent heavily on the goodwill and good sense of the EU. I don't think it will be lacking, if only because it is in the EU's interests to be sensible. It doesn't want an angry and sulky little isand off its mainland coast.
You really do need to get your head round that.
My point is that making the election about the economy when voters do not feel the economy is performing in their interests and you have been managing it for the last nine years may not be a slam dunk.
The tories have to counter that with reality instead of simply hoping kids don't bother to vote.
CCHQ steered clear of the economy and locked the Chancellor in a broom cupboard to avoid questions about which taxes he would raise; about why the tax guarantees had been dropped from the manifesto; about the botched NIC increase just a few weeks earlier.
The truth is that wage stagnation and falling standards of living since 2010 turned voters against the government as it had earlier turned them against the EU. Voters have had austerity and what is to show for it? Osborne's binding targets kicked into the long grass? Record national debt? Not to mention the immediate prospect of higher taxes.
Sure, it can be turned around in time but it takes a lot of time to turn a supertanker around.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/who-really-controls-labour-party-now
Google Singapore for the route we should be taking.
In the end it was a damnably close thing.
Labour did so well because they won very convincingly amongst the young, and the Conservatives lost amongst the 35-44 age group, and lost a good chunk of their female vote.
For me personally, the repeated rhetoric of "no deal is better than a bad deal" was pure poison. It demonstrated that in the Tory party Brexit ideologues were in charge and the conservative pragmatists were nowhere.
On Brexit, the key economic issue of our generation, the pragmatism offered by Starmer was/is a far safer bet.
This alone overrode any doubts I might have about Corbyn.
We are all Corbynites now...
After 12 months, the economic damage is beginning to show too. The pound has lost 14% of its value against the euro; the governor of the Bank of England says “weaker real income growth” cannot be prevented. Inflation is rising. Brexit has made Britons poorer.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/23/brexit-stopped-answer-in-our-hands-leave
Inflation meanwhile is at the historically eyewatering level of 2.9%, and the pound is still comfortably worth more against the euro than it was during the Great Recession.
The point on the exchange rate is entirely correct, except in that it suggests it's 'beginning' to show. The pound's fall happened long ago.
Tories here today are like Labour in the 1980s. If only the electorate realised X or saw the truth of Y. Worse, some are like faith healers: the patient died but that proves he did not start the superfood and cheese diet early enough. The attacks on Corbyn didn't work so we need more attacks on Corbyn. The press wasn't biased enough; the manifesto must be filled with bland lies; the leader needs to be more ... well, you get the picture.
You're right, most Remainers still think the verdict was wrong, but they understand democracy. The ones who don't tend to be the self-elected elite who consider themselves to be superior. As you are neither an MP or a writer for the Guardian (as far as I know), you are innocent.
And no deal is also bad for the EU too, but they're engaged in their own bluff too by implying they couldn't care less either way.
Parliament needs characters.
My suggestion from the outside would be that they look in the medium term to promote those who spend less time frothing about the evils of the EU and more time talking about how the government can improve the lives of the electorate. Admittedly, right now that might be a very short list indeed.
The next GE will be more traditional I suspect. In the sense that either side will be seen to be capable of winning and so it will be a campaign back on economics and public services and not all this Queen May bs.
Then again, there might be two new parties by then. A centre Progressive Democrats and Farage's new far right vehicle.
The cut in interest rates was a mistake though.
Countering the balls about taxing the rich by showing how much the tax take rises when tax rates are cut, taking so many millions out of tax.
The Tories are far and away better than Labour on understanding the economy. Make it about aspiration (and especially houses) for young professionals (the oldies won't vote for Corbyn) and we get a majority.
Funniest moment of this morning is seeing th supposed Labour moderates cheering for Corbyn despite him not being able to win an election against the weakest Tory campaign for generations....
Race tomorrow is at 2pm.
My understanding of it is conditioned by the modern Western society in which I live, and involves electing representatives to govern for you in your own best interests. Government by referendum is not democracy. It is something else, and in the context of the EU vote I should say it was principally a shirking of parliamentary responsibility and an attempt by the Conservative Party to resolve certain internal issues.
I wish that the improvement in business conditions was providing the bulk of the support. But it's not. It's consumer borrowing that is keeping the UK economy moving. Credit card debt is up 9.7% year-over-year. That's the fastest growth rate in a decade. On a percentage of GDP basis, credit card lending is now only a smidgen below where it was on the eve of the financial crisis.
Now, it's possible that the UK consumer will be able increase their debts forever, that the savings rate will get ever more negative, and that the rest of the world be willing to fund the resulting current account deficit.
But it's not very likely. The danger is that any slowdown in the economy starts a viscous cycle. Consumer worry about the future, they decide that it would be safer to spend less and save more for safety reasons, the economy slows and jobs are lost. Consumers worry about the future...
One of the reasons that Corbyn was always lukewarm about the EU, for example is that his nationalisation preference was not compliant with EU law. That is a choice we could make after Brexit that is not currently open to us.
Lack of clarity on need for Parliamentary approval?
We're heading for something more cross-party, more pragmatic and that prioritises the economy over ideology.
That is a good thing. Rejoice!
I think you need to have a lie-down. Your posts on here are becoming almost as hyperbolic as your tweets over on Twitter, which are becoming ever more hyperventilating and shrill.
If you could show me a case for how it failed massively with floating voters, I'd listen.
Its bollox and they know it, which is why they resort to Guardian opinions as opposed to facts already pointed out.
As a country and individuals we're obsessed by borrowing, it has to stop.
I'm convinced there is a consumer driven recession coming, too. We're getting way more estate agents putting leaflets through our door asking for houses to sell. I'm seeing far fewer cars on the roads in. Evenings and weekends, and the little high street where I have a shop is slower than ever. The weak pound and tourism will help (in fact both are already helping me), but they won't replace domestic consumption at all.
My admittedly short experience of witnessing projections of recessions and then actual recessions makes me feel that recessions lag behind predictions of them. Maybe we're ok for another year?
I agree with your point, btw. One of the first things that told me matters had gone very far awry in the banking world was when the financial adviser who was trying to persuade me to get my first credit card told me quite seriously that they were great, and she knew this because she was maxed out on three of them.
Try to understand how it might have looked to people who do not trust the tories. There were no reassuring words whatsoever.
Since you trust the Tories, it didn't matter to you. But the hard line they took (and to an extent continue to take) was polarizing.
Thank-you PBers for the great site and thought-provoking debate!
The try, that is...
Excluding the UK from all agreements of which we are a part thanks to our EU membership, while significantly increasing the cost of doing business in our biggest export market, would inflict huge, long-lasting damage to the economy and living standards. I know you don't want that to be true, but it is, I'm afraid.
Only briefly in the 1970s did I vote for a party that went into government. Mostly, the elected government represented the country's viewpoint not mine. Fair enough. I believed anti-Maggie demonstrations were the act of spoilt children.
Most Remainers are adults. If Parliament doesn't represent the country on major issues (the death penalty was a minor issue, making murder legal would be a major issue), the problem lies with them, not the voters.
What do they all have in common? Low regulation? Not really, Germany and Switzerland are high regulation countries.
The answer is high savings rates.
Singapore's household savings ratio is 24%.
Switzerland's is 19%.
China is 28%.
Hong Kong is 14%.
Germany is 10%.
We're at 3%. That's basically an all time low. That's why you should be very, very concerned about the medium term outlook for the UK. Almost all recessions are a consequence of changes in the savings rate. And the long-term equilibrium level for the UK is about 11%. To go from 3% to 11% would involve a recession on the scale of 1990-1992. And economies typically overshoot. If we were to go to 15%, that would be the worst recession in the UK since the 1930s.
I do agree that we cannot run on consumer credit for ever. There was good news about manufacturing yesterday, particularly in relation to exports. The hope has to be that the EZ continues to pick up and we improve our export position enough to offset any slow down in consumption. The great British consumer has been keeping the EU afloat on its own for too long.
The key problem about Europe is and has been for years that most people are antipathetic or hostile to it in this country, as the referendum demonstrated, but for all bar a noisy minority on both sides it is actually a very minor issue. That is why Blair spent years on fox hunting and no time at all really trying to sort out the EU or the railway network. The former swayed votes, amazingly, and the latter two didn't.
No election has ever been won or lost on Europe, as 2017 so graphically demonstrates. Domestic issues are crucial.
A bolder move by Corbyn would be the offer of a unilateral restoration of Stormont with the abandonment of power sharing, leaving the DUP in sole charge of Ulster. It would of course be a rather radical departure for a man who was arrested at a riot in support of Patrick Macgee, but it would be less damaging in many ways and certainly less surprising than his sudden support for hard Brexit, zero immigration and swingeing benefit cuts.
"You might want to read the government figures and projections that were published with the last budget."
Let's ignore govt projections and take your assertion to its logical conclusion.
If debt and immigration equals prosperity why don't we all borrow £1m, open the borders to all and increase the population to 150m.
As somebody else points out, you are becoming increasingly hyperbolic and irrational.