Apparently Luciana Berger goes down quite well with the electorate in Finchley and Golders Green, but she's not thought likely to win. Too many voters adopt the attitude that one less Tory MP equals a slightly increased chance of a Corbyn-led Government.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth oate for Mayor of London, opposed Theresa May's Brexit Deal twice and swore that he would not support a border in the Irish Sea. This is before we get into his colorful personal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a ble
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are conc as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
It is actually worse than that, TtL. He combines extreme amorality with a self-centred conceit that singles him out as an extraordinarily dangerous and unprincipled individual of a tye that one would be unlikely to encounter in any walk of life.
I claim to be in something of an advantage over most people in making this assessment. A close relative was at Balliol with him. He wrote a perceptive and informaative article about Johnson several years ago. It remains one of the best pieces on the man I have ever read.
Yeah either this hack has no understanding of how MRP works or the No 10 spad doesn't. Either way, sad how many people in our public life are so thick.
Or sensibly dampening down expectations of a large win to ensure wavering remainer tories don't think they can vote lib-dem in protest
A good economist can tell you where you will see problems, but very few can tell you when.
I don't believe that any economist can tell you when if you are talking about a long term problem. It's hard enough to forecast things in the near term.
Economics has a poor record at forecasting, but it is good at analysing what has happened. If we (in the broadest sense) realised that economics is best used as an analytical tool for reasoning about the past and guiding our decision making in the future, rather than expecting economists to tell us what will happen and when, we would probably make better choices. We ought to take economic rules of thumb more seriously, and forecasts less seriously.
p.s. And never trust anyone who says "this time it's different", they are almost always wrong.
Apparently Luciana Berger goes down quite well with the electorate in Finchley and Golders Green, but she's not thought likely to win. Too many voters adopt the attitude that one less Tory MP equals a slightly increased chance of a Corbyn-led Government.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth oate for Mayor of London, opposed Theresa May's Brexit Deal twice and swore that he would not support a border in the Irish Sea. This is before we get into his colorful personal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a ble
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
It is actually worse than that, TtL. He combines extreme amorality with a self-centred conceit that singles him out as an extraordinarily dangerous and unprincipled individual of a tye that one would be unlikely to encounter in any walk of life.
I claim to be in something of an advantage over most people in making this assessment. A close relative was at Balliol with him. He wrote a perceptive and informaative article about Johnson several years ago. It remains one of the best pieces on the man I have ever read.
Guardian reporting the Tories will get rid of FTPA.
Well, they've got my vote.
I understood that they cant simply repeal it, but need to replace it with something.
Repealing FTPA is going to be a right pain in the arse, as the previous status quo (the Royal Prerogative) is difficult to return to once it’s been legislated away.
It’s going to take a lot of expert constitutional thinking to work out how to fix the problem, I’d guess that a House of Lords Committee will be tasked with finding a solution.
Can you not just legislate to restore the Royal Prerogative or legislate to recreate it as it was?
Create a new 5 year Parliament Act saying that Parliament is dissolved 5 years after the last election, but giving the PM legal authority to request an early dissolution.
You cant legislate for royal prerogative I believe, no new prerogative powers. Obviously that protects against a psycho with a landslide majority passing enabling act type legislation
But there's no reason you can't recreate via legislation how the Prerogative was used in the past is there?
An early election previously was called if the PM of the day requested one. Put that in as legislation, job done.
Royal prerogative is not under legislation, it's by convention and once legislated away u cant reimpose it (the convention no longer exists in law or in practice)
Yes but can you not legislate to recreate how the prerogative was exercised. IE get rid of the votes in Parliament and simply say the PM can request an early election?
Yes but that’s not “recreating the prerogative” as its now on a legal basis
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a ble
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
It is actually worse than that, TtL. He combines extreme amorality with a self-centred conceit that singles him out as an extraordinarily dangerous and unprincipled individual of a tye that one would be unlikely to encounter in any walk of life.
I claim to be in something of an advantage over most people in making this assessment. A close relative was at Balliol with him. He wrote a perceptive and informaative article about Johnson several years ago. It remains one of the best pieces on the man I have ever read.
Apparently Luciana Berger goes down quite well with the electorate in Finchley and Golders Green, but she's not thought likely to win. Too many voters adopt the attitude that one less Tory MP equals a slightly increased chance of a Corbyn-led Government.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth of this tale or your friend's integrity, but is he unaware that Johnson was sacked twice from senior post for lying, masqueraded as a pro-business pro-Europe candidate for Mayor of London, opposed Theresa May's Brexit Deal twice and swore that he would not support a border in the Irish Sea. This is before we get into his colorful personal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a blessed relief that I do not have to vote for either. If I did have to choose just between the two, honesty would be only one of many criteria I would apply. Were I to decide however on just that one factor, Corbyn would have to win, by some distance.
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
I think Peter's problem isn't that Boris is a liar but that he's a leaver. He seems perfectly accepting of all those remainer MPs that lied to get elected in 2017.
OK, I have to go now but first I have a question for our many thousands of Man U supporters and admirers.
I sold MU on the points spread at the start of the season and it is now showing a very healthy profit. Should I cash out now before they sack OGS and appoint The Poch?
Answers please asap. I reckon I have until Tuesday.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
Yeah either this hack has no understanding of how MRP works or the No 10 spad doesn't. Either way, sad how many people in our public life are so thick.
Or sensibly dampening down expectations of a large win to ensure wavering remainer tories don't think they can vote lib-dem in protest
Must be possible to do that in a way that doesn't demonstrate that you have no idea how MRP is actually calculated.
Apparently Luciana Berger goes down quite well with the electorate in Finchley and Golders Green, but she's not thought likely to win. Too many voters adopt the attitude that one less Tory MP equals a slightly increased chance of a Corbyn-led Government.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth of this tale or your friend's integrity, but is he unaware that Johal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a blessed relief that I do not have to vote for either. If I did have to choose just between the two, honesty would be only one of many criteria I would apply. Were I to decide however on just that one factor, Corbyn would have to win, by some distance.
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
I think Peter's problem isn't that Boris is a liar but that he's a leaver. He seems perfectly accepting of all those remainer MPs that lied to get elected in 2017.
No, my problem is that he's a liar, and an unprincipled one. He would have no compunction about taking us out No Deal t the end of next year.
OK, I have to go now but first I have a question for our many thousands of Man U supporters and admirers.
I sold MU on the points spread at the start of the season and it is now showing a very healthy profit. Should I cash out now before they sack OGS and appoint The Poch?
Answers please asap. I reckon I have until Tuesday.
Nite all.
Not a Man Utd fan, couldn't be further from it, but in my opinion the revolving door of Man Utd Managers aren't the problem.
Now if Man Utd were about to sack Woodward that would be a different story.
As we all know the 2008 Global Financial Crisis was caused by deregulation in the global financial industry.
That allowed banks to experiment in hedge fund trading with derivatives. To finance this trading banks demanded more dodgy mortgages to support the sale of these derivatives.
In reality you could say it started in 2007 in the US with the subprime mortgage market fiasco.
We should not really be calling it the Labour Financial Crash as Labour just happened to be in power when global events took a turn for the worse. Had the Tories been in power we would be calling it The Tory Crash. The portents for another catastrophe are brewing away in the background and a hard Brexit will make things worse.
Apparently Luciana Berger goes down quite well with the electorate in Finchley and Golders Green, but she's not thought likely to win. Too many voters adopt the attitude that one less Tory MP equals a slightly increased chance of a Corbyn-led Government.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a ble
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
It is actually worse than that, TtL. He combines extreme amorality with a self-centred conceit that singles him out as an extraordinarily dangerous and unprincipled individual of a tye that one would be unlikely to encounter in any walk of life.
I claim to be in something of an advantage over most people in making this assessment. A close relative was at Balliol with him. He wrote a perceptive and informaative article about Johnson several years ago. It remains one of the best pieces on the man I have ever read.
I may be biased on multiple fronts, but that article doesn't make me like Boris any less!
And in any case, hasn't the history of Britain's relationship with Europe over the last century been disproportionately determined by its Balliol prime ministers? Asquith fought a world war centred on Europe, Macmillan tried to take us in, Heath succeeded, and Boris may yet take us out again...
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
As we all know the 2008 Global Financial Crisis was caused by deregulation in the global financial industry.
That allowed banks to experiment in hedge fund trading with derivatives. To finance this trading banks demanded more dodgy mortgages to support the sale of these derivatives.
In reality you could say it started in 2007 in the US with the subprime mortgage market fiasco.
We should not really be calling it the Labour Financial Crash as Labour just happened to be in power when global events took a turn for the worse. Had the Tories been in power we would be calling it The Tory Crash. The portents for another catastrophe are brewing away in the background and a hard Brexit will make things worse.
But it’s not the crash people blame Labour for. It’s the after effects, particularly the banking failures and the huge deficits. Both of those could have been if not avoided at least significantly mitigated by alternative policy choices in the years 2003-2007. These choices were not made because Brown was hubristic enough to believe there would never be another recession. That is a thing Labour owns, and trying to deny it just makes its supporters look stupid.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
I imagine that they'd use the bill repealing the FTPA to amend the number of seats if they were that way inclined.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
Yes, agreed.
The timing is now out of synch - it was obviously designed for a GE in May 2025.
This whole area does cause a lot of confusion. The easiest way to look at it is:
1) Primary legislation is needed to change what the Boundary Commission does - eg how many seats, date when report issued, date of electoral register which is used.
2) Whenever the Boundary Commission actually issues a report, it just needs a Statutory Instrument to be passed by Parliament to implement it.
I assume Boris would work on basis that Parliament won't implement 600 seats. So he needs new legislation - to revert to 650 seats and if he is sensible legislation will say next review is based on February 2020 Electoral Register, with Report to be issued in September 2022.
Yeah either this hack has no understanding of how MRP works or the No 10 spad doesn't. Either way, sad how many people in our public life are so thick.
Or sensibly dampening down expectations of a large win to ensure wavering remainer tories don't think they can vote lib-dem in protest
Must be possible to do that in a way that doesn't demonstrate that you have no idea how MRP is actually calculated.
Why would you bother, when there's a way that will make much more sense to the vast majority of people?
Some anecdata to amuse you - usual warning about lack of science. I spent three hours in Portsmouth South (on my own, as the main groups were doing times that didn't work for me) and did a couple of hundred houses.
1. People are REALLY engaged. Very few "don't cares". Most Tory voters are rock hard ("BREXIT ALL THE WAY!" "Just get it done!"), Labour voters fizzing with enthusiasm ("Would you like a poster?" "YES! Can I have three? I've got a bay window!") and there's a big personal vote for Stephen Morgan.
2. The LibDem tide felt as though it was ebbing, even though this was Southsea, which is a LibDem-held ward: Labour posters outnumbered LD ones by 4:1. Several ex-LD voters told me they were switching to Labour, for a mixture of reasons - support Morgan, stop a hard Brexit, but oppose Revoke ("I sympathise but it's not democratic to just cancel the damn thing"). A lone Tory-Labour switcher said she thought Corbyn's approach was right, though "I've never voted Labour in my life" - she looked scared, like someone thinking of doing karoake night at a grime club.
3. Two women spontaneously mentioned the Waspi promise as a reason to vote Labour ("I won't benefit myself but I sympathise with the ones who will"). More generally, lots of people mentioned non-Brexit issues - one said "the Tories and LibDems don't seem to have any other ideas, whereas you lot have too many, but that's a fault on the right side". Lots of interest in discussion, even though we were mostly on the doorstep in the dark (it's a myth that people won't open the door tp canvassers at night). Two ex-Labour were strongly anti-Corbyn and wrestling with what to do as they liked Morgan - one will back him, the other not, I think.
4. Usual weird encounters. One was clearly stoned and swayed on his feet as he tried to be polite. Another suavely declined interest in Labour, shut the door and then shouted to his partner "That was fucking Greenpeace!"
Overall impression: moving to Labour if that's typical, but a few streets in one ward is no kind of sample.
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
Old argument. Nothing the Tories were advocating at the time would have made things any better.
The Tories weren't in government, Labour were. Labour overspent as they always do. Problem with Labour is they always run out of other people's money.
And you’re going to run out of other people’s money paying for Brexit.
Evidence please
Evidence of what? We are still running a deficit and Brexit is going to result in less tax money and less growth. Simple. Other people’s money.
So, if your concerned about a deficit you clearly will reject Labour?
Still waiting for evidence
You’re more than happy to swallow the horse manure that comes out of Boris and friends’s mouths without any evidence. What’s different?
Nope - I don't like any party particularly.
I like my local Lib Dem candidate as he strikes me as a true public servant and I have said so repeatedly.
But the bottom line is the sewer dwelling marxists have to be kept out of power - literally everything else is secondary.
The tories are therefore the least worse choice
Ken Clarke disagrees: "“Both are awful prospects, but I think a no-deal Brexit could cause far more damage to our future economic success than Corbyn.”
The timing is now out of synch - it was obviously designed for a GE in May 2025.
This whole area does cause a lot of confusion. The easiest way to look at it is:
1) Primary legislation is needed to change what the Boundary Commission does - eg how many seats, date when report issued, date of electoral register which is used.
2) Whenever the Boundary Commission actually issues a report, it just needs a Statutory Instrument to be passed by Parliament to implement it.
Politicians shouldn't have a say in the boundaries at all after they've set the rules. Even then they should be seen to be fair (unlike the gerrymandering in the US) and agreed by all sides. the changes DC made mean that Labour don't agree with it and it's become a political issue when it shouldn't have
Some anecdata to amuse you - usual warning about lack of science. I spent three hours in Portsmouth South (on my own, as the main groups were doing times that didn't work for me) and did a couple of hundred houses.
1. People are REALLY engaged. Very few "don't cares". Most Tory voters are rock hard ("BREXIT ALL THE WAY!" "Just get it done!"), Labour voters fizzing with enthusiasm ("Would you like a poster?" "YES! Can I have three? I've got a bay window!") and there's a big personal vote for Stephen Morgan.
2. The LibDem tide felt as though it was ebbing, even though this was Southsea, which is a LibDem-held ward: Labour posters outnumbered LD ones by 4:1. Several ex-LD voters told me they were switching to Labour, for a mixture of reasons - support Morgan, stop a hard Brexit, but oppose Revoke ("I sympathise but it's not democratic to just cancel the damn thing"). A lone Tory-Labour switcher said she thought Corbyn's approach was right, though "I've never voted Labour in my life" - she looked scared, like someone thinking of doing karoake night at a grime club.
3. Two women spontaneously mentioned the Waspi promise as a reason to vote Labour ("I won't benefit myself but I sympathise with the ones who will"). More generally, lots of people mentioned non-Brexit issues - one said "the Tories and LibDems don't seem to have any other ideas, whereas you lot have too many, but that's a fault on the right side". Lots of interest in discussion, even though we were mostly on the doorstep in the dark (it's a myth that people won't open the door tp canvassers at night). Two ex-Labour were strongly anti-Corbyn and wrestling with what to do as they liked Morgan - one will back him, the other not, I think.
4. Usual weird encounters. One was clearly stoned and swayed on his feet as he tried to be polite. Another suavely declined interest in Labour, shut the door and then shouted to his partner "That was fucking Greenpeace!"
Overall impression: moving to Labour if that's typical, but a few streets in one ward is no kind of sample.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Too right its no sample.. pop out and chat to every white van man you see and see what response you get.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth oate for Mayor of London, opposed Theresa May's Brexit Deal twice and swore that he would not support a border in the Irish Sea. This is before we get into his colorful personal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a ble
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
It is actually worse than that, TtL. He combines extreme amorality with a self-centred conceit that singles him out as an extraordinarily dangerous and unprincipled individual of a tye that one would be unlikely to encounter in any walk of life.
I claim to be in something of an advantage over most people in making this assessment. A close relative was at Balliol with him. He wrote a perceptive and informaative article about Johnson several years ago. It remains one of the best pieces on the man I have ever read.
Allow me to send you the link.
Thanks, that would be interesting. No idea how messaging works on here though to be honest.
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Yes.
It is Labour's fault it was overspending before the recession hit. Recessions happen - there was no reason to be running a major deficit after nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth. A recession was long overdue, under Keynesian economics which Labour was supposed to understand they should have been running a budget surplus but instead they were running a maxed out deficit.
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
The Tories backed Labour's spending plans. Are you really going to sit here and tell me we'd have had no recession or deficit with them in power? Come on.
Quite the opposite. I'm not saying we never had recessions, but recessions happen. We coped with recessions because we were taking action to reduce debt-to-GDP prior to the recession hitting in the past. Unfortunately due to Brown's hubris in thinking he'd ended boom and bust he screwed up completely.
We had a recession under the prior Tory government.
The prior recession was Q3 1990 - Q3 1991. But every single year from 1984 to 1990 the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.
Debt to GDP was slashed over the 80s so when the recession hit countercyclical spending could kick in.
Brown hubristically assumed that he "ended boom and bust" and increased spending every year. 2002 30.05 2003 31.26 2004 32.52 2005 35.6 2006 36.67 2007 37.25
After 16 years of economic growth Brown hubristically increased the deficit and increased debt annually so when the inevitable recession hit we were screwed.
Ken Clarke disagrees: "“Both are awful prospects, but I think a no-deal Brexit could cause far more damage to our future economic success than Corbyn.”
Not really. For all his many good points, Clarke's one great failing is that he has always put adherence to the cult of Europe above any other consideration including the ruin of our country.
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
Old argument. Nothing the Tories were advocating at the time would have made things any better.
The Tories weren't in government, Labour were. Labour overspent as they always do. Problem with Labour is they always run out of other people's money.
And you’re going to run out of other people’s money paying for Brexit.
Evidence please
SNIP.
So, if your concerned about a deficit you clearly will reject Labour?
Still waiting for evidence
You’re more than happy to swallow the horse manure that comes out of Boris and friends’s mouths without any evidence. What’s different?
Nope - I don't like any party particularly.
I like my local Lib Dem candidate as he strikes me as a true public servant and I have said so repeatedly.
But the bottom line is the sewer dwelling marxists have to be kept out of power - literally everything else is secondary.
The tories are therefore the least worse choice
Ken Clarke disagrees: "“Both are awful prospects, but I think a no-deal Brexit could cause far more damage to our future economic success than Corbyn.”
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Yes.
It is Labour's fault it was overspending before the recession hit. Recessions happen - there was no reason to be running a major deficit after nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth. A recession was long overdue, under Keynesian economics which Labour was supposed to understand they should have been running a budget surplus but instead they were running a maxed out deficit.
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
The Tories backed Labour's spending plans. Are you really going to sit here and tell me we'd have had no recession or deficit with them in power? Come on.
Quite the opposite. I'm not saying we never had recessions, but recessions happen. We coped with recessions because we were taking action to reduce debt-to-GDP prior to the recession hitting in the past. Unfortunately due to Brown's hubris in thinking he'd ended boom and bust he screwed up completely.
We had a recession under the prior Tory government.
The prior recession was Q3 1990 - Q3 1991. But every single year from 1984 to 1990 the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.
Debt to GDP was slashed over the 80s so when the recession hit countercyclical spending could kick in.
Brown hubristically assumed that he "ended boom and bust" and increased spending every year. 2002 30.05 2003 31.26 2004 32.52 2005 35.6 2006 36.67 2007 37.25
After 16 years of economic growth Brown hubristically increased the deficit and increased debt annually so when the inevitable recession hit we were screwed.
Then they blame the tories for the rise in total debt whilst also screaming about austerity.
An excellent suggestion, unfortunately YouGov use too much dynamic gubbins on their site so whilst the page is there it is effectively blank on the Wayback Machine.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth oate for Mayor of London, opposed Theresa May's Brexit Deal twice and swore that he would not support a border in the Irish Sea. This is before we get into his colorful personal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
There won't be a border down the Irish sea. There will be checks. The customs border will be between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as Northern Ireland will be in the UK customs territory and will charge tariffs at UK rates. I know it suits a lot of people to deliberately ignore this, but it is an untruth that must not be allowed to catch on.
The people have been an inspiration in the face of severe personal consequences. They show there is no government too powerful to be thwarted by the will of the people.
"The government does not have a Ministry of Silly Walks, but Labour has a Department of Silly Ideas, which is the only explanation for its four-day week, a populist idea not achieving much popularity among voters. They know it does not smell right — that, after a decade of productivity stagnation, the idea that it can be delivered by productivity gains is fantasy. They know it is undeliverable for large parts of the public sector, including the NHS, whose workers are being offered an immediate pay rise, and in which productivity gains are even more elusive.
For the four-day week, read the Labour manifesto, a collection of unaffordable, backward-looking aspirations that voters should regard with incredulity. We can only hope that they do."
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Yes.
It is Labour's fault it was overspending before the recession hit. Recessions happen - there was no reason to be running a major deficit after nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth. A recession was long overdue, under Keynesian economics which Labour was supposed to understand they should have been running a budget surplus but instead they were running a maxed out deficit.
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
The Tories backed Labour's spending plans. Are you really going to sit here and tell me we'd have had no recession or deficit with them in power? Come on.
Quite the opposite. I'm not saying we never had recessions, but recessions happen. We coped with recessions because we were taking action to reduce debt-to-GDP prior to the recession hitting in the past. Unfortunately due to Brown's hubris in thinking he'd ended boom and bust he screwed up completely.
We had a recession under the prior Tory government.
The prior recession was Q3 1990 - Q3 1991. But every single year from 1984 to 1990 the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.
Debt to GDP was slashed over the 80s so when the recession hit countercyclical spending could kick in.
Brown hubristically assumed that he "ended boom and bust" and increased spending every year. 2002 30.05 2003 31.26 2004 32.52 2005 35.6 2006 36.67 2007 37.25
After 16 years of economic growth Brown hubristically increased the deficit and increased debt annually so when the inevitable recession hit we were screwed.
Then they blame the tories for the rise in total debt whilst also screaming about austerity.
Go figure.
Indeed. The innumeracy of some people is quite scary.
So what? The detail was kept back is all, it's a stupid, cynical policy and definitely opportunistic, regardless of whether it literally was something they came up with this week, which I've no doubt is not the case.
Except it was mentioned in the manifesto - in vague terms - and without the cost. So even this is a lie from Labour.
Javid and Johnson today trumpeted the fiscal prudence of the Tories. How therefore do they explain how our national debt has now risen to £2.27 trillion and will continue to rise with a hard Brexit and a lack of new tax raising measures.
If the Tories win this election it could be the last one they will win.
Easy, Labour left them with an eye-watering deficit in 2010
No, the GFC left us with a massive defecit. Or do you think it was Labour's fault?
Yes.
It is Labour's fault it was overspending before the recession hit. Recessions happen - there was no reason to be running a major deficit after nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth. A recession was long overdue, under Keynesian economics which Labour was supposed to understand they should have been running a budget surplus but instead they were running a maxed out deficit.
Had the country had a small surplus going into the GFC then we could have absorbed the shock. We didn't.
The Tories backed Labour's spending plans. Are you really going to sit here and tell me we'd have had no recession or deficit with them in power? Come on.
Quite the opposite. I'm not saying we never had recessions, but recessions happen. We coped with recessions because we were taking action to reduce debt-to-GDP prior to the recession hitting in the past. Unfortunately due to Brown's hubris in thinking he'd ended boom and bust he screwed up completely.
We had a recession under the prior Tory government.
The prior recession was Q3 1990 - Q3 1991. But every single year from 1984 to 1990 the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.
Debt to GDP was slashed over the 80s so when the recession hit countercyclical spending could kick in.
Brown hubristically assumed that he "ended boom and bust" and increased spending every year. 2002 30.05 2003 31.26 2004 32.52 2005 35.6 2006 36.67 2007 37.25
After 16 years of economic growth Brown hubristically increased the deficit and increased debt annually so when the inevitable recession hit we were screwed.
Then they blame the tories for the rise in total debt whilst also screaming about austerity.
Go figure.
Indeed. The innumeracy of some people is quite scary.
It's not like a labour government in 2010 would have done much differently (apart from raising taxes significantly)
Ken Clarke disagrees: "“Both are awful prospects, but I think a no-deal Brexit could cause far more damage to our future economic success than Corbyn.”
Not really. For all his many good points, Clarke's one great failing is that he has always put adherence to the cult of Europe above any other consideration including the ruin of our country.
Are you saying that at that time you had a detailed understanding of tripartite regulation, the inter-bank lending system, the mortgage market and the credit default swap issue, and realised it was all going wrong and needed more regulation?
Because if so, I am afraid I don’t believe you. Even most experienced bankers didn’t get these things (therein lay much of the problem).
I don't believe I told you what my age was. I said I was relatively young but I don't reveal personal details on the Internet, so let's have no more discussion about that thank you.
I supported more regulation which people like Vince Cable - to his credit - supported and warned of the crash before it happened. I don't claim to have a deep knowledge of regulation, just that in my short experience unfettered capitalism always leads to disaster.
You said you were a university student in 2017. I am assuming that was undergraduate but let’s assume you did postgrad work (as several posters here have). You might therefore have been 25 in June 2017. That would put your DOB sometime in the early 1990s - around 1992 at the earliest. So you would have been at best 15 when the crisis hit.
Of course, you might be a mature student. But you have also repeatedly said you are a ‘young’ person in your mid-twenties.
You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say you are young and can speak for your demographic, and then that you were wise to highly complex economic events when you would have barely left primary school. That merely makes you look silly.
You can say you now support greater regulation and with hindsight NewLabour were wrong. That’s no problem. After all, those of us around at the time mostly missed the key weaknesses as well so we can hardly criticise you for using hindsight. I was doing a Masters in politics and economics and I missed most of the warning signs (my very confident prediction was of a London house price crash, which shows what I knew). But don’t try To have it both ways.
If it makes you feel better my father, who was hugely focused on understanding the London property market at the time (with 40 years experience in the topic) also expected a crash.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
Tory MPs don’t like the 600 and if they do get a bunch of newbies with small majorities they will like it even less. A re-run with a 650 target and more flexible criteria is the best bet. Most constituencies would then only be modestly affected
Just back from the gym. How many extra tens of billions of public spending have Labour announced in the last couple of hours
On topic, if the Tories do get a majority next month then how do we all think Johnson might approach Indyref2? Presumably Sturgeon's demand for a vote next year will be turned down flat, but what do we reckon the response will be to another pro-independence majority in the next Scottish Parliament election?
The Scottish Tories are obviously heavily invested in holding the Union together, but I'm just wondering how bothered the English ones (and Johnson himself) actually are. If Scotland votes to go then Labour's main potential coalition partner is removed and the Conservative majority at Westminster increases by about 50.
I thought it very telling that both James Cleverly and Boris Johnson highlighted and made it clear that they would not agree to a 2nd Indy Ref early on in both their speeches at the manifesto launch. This suggests that this issue is coming up on the doorsteps in Scotland and the Conservative message of No to another Indy Ref is cutting through strongly as last nights Scottish poll suggests.
Are you saying that at that time you had a detailed understanding of tripartite regulation, the inter-bank lending system, the mortgage market and the credit default swap issue, and realised it was all going wrong and needed more regulation?
Because if so, I am afraid I don’t believe you. Even most experienced bankers didn’t get these things (therein lay much of the problem).
I don't believe I told you what my age was. I said I was relatively young but I don't reveal personal details on the Internet, so let's have no more discussion about that thank you.
I supported more regulation which people like Vince Cable - to his credit - supported and warned of the crash before it happened. I don't claim to have a deep knowledge of regulation, just that in my short experience unfettered capitalism always leads to disaster.
You said you were a university student in 2017. I am assuming that was undergraduate but let’s assume you did postgrad work (as several posters here have). You might therefore have been 25 in June 2017. That would put your DOB sometime in the early 1990s - around 1992 at the earliest. So you would have been at best 15 when the crisis hit.
Of course, you might be a mature student. But you have also repeatedly said you are a ‘young’ person in your mid-twenties.
You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say you are young and can speak for your demographic, and then that you were wise to highly complex economic events when you would have barely left primary school. That merely makes you look silly.
You can say you now support greater regulation and with hindsight NewLabour were wrong. That’s no problem. After all, those of us around at the time mostly missed the key weaknesses as well so we can hardly criticise you for using hindsight. I was doing a Masters in politics and economics and I missed most of the warning signs (my very confident prediction was of a London house price crash, which shows what I knew). But don’t try To have it both ways.
If it makes you feel better my father, who was hugely focused on understanding the London property market at the time (with 40 years experience in the topic) also expected a crash.
I think everyone who tried to play Nostradamus ended up with egg on their face. In my case I was lucky it didn't matter in any significant way!
As we all know the 2008 Global Financial Crisis was caused by deregulation in the global financial industry.
That allowed banks to experiment in hedge fund trading with derivatives. To finance this trading banks demanded more dodgy mortgages to support the sale of these derivatives.
In reality you could say it started in 2007 in the US with the subprime mortgage market fiasco.
We should not really be calling it the Labour Financial Crash as Labour just happened to be in power when global events took a turn for the worse. Had the Tories been in power we would be calling it The Tory Crash. The portents for another catastrophe are brewing away in the background and a hard Brexit will make things worse.
Let's be clear. The financial crisis will happen again. In an era of low returns, people look for higher returns from seemingly safe investments. So now car loans are securitised, invested in, bet on and here we go again.
Personally I would have required the ratings agencies to have skin in the game - any item they rate at investment grade should have a personal cost of a %of the fund payable by the executives signing off if the item fails. If they trust their own rating then they'll be fine with that, won't they?
So what? The detail was kept back is all, it's a stupid, cynical policy and definitely opportunistic, regardless of whether it literally was something they came up with this week, which I've no doubt is not the case.
Except it was mentioned in the manifesto - in vague terms - and without the cost. So even this is a lie from Labour.
I as a young person have received no reason for me to vote Tory, thanks Johnson
LOL - they could have given you a ferrari and you would still say no.
We all know who you prefer
I think under Cameron they at least tried to be moderate and propose some policies like gay marriage, etc. but they're not even trying anymore.
In a way I kind of respect them for that - but it does make my decision very easy.
Having said that, I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote is fairly useless. Think I will have to vote Lib Dem tactically.
What is the current equivalent of gay marriage? What policy could they offer?
Scrapping the 6% interest rate on tuition fees + help with apprenticeships and vocational training would be my choices.
Have a simple graduate tax that kicks in at the basic rate. 2% or whatever the actuaries estimate it needs to be to cover the costs. And.. The clincher... Allow all graduates with existing the debt the option of switching from their scheme to this for life graduate tax scheme.
A good economist can tell you where you will see problems, but very few can tell you when.
I don't believe that any economist can tell you when if you are talking about a long term problem. It's hard enough to forecast things in the near term.
Economics has a poor record at forecasting, but it is good at analysing what has happened. If we (in the broadest sense) realised that economics is best used as an analytical tool for reasoning about the past and guiding our decision making in the future, rather than expecting economists to tell us what will happen and when, we would probably make better choices. We ought to take economic rules of thumb more seriously, and forecasts less seriously.
p.s. And never trust anyone who says "this time it's different", they are almost always wrong.
Predictions are always difficult, especially when they are about the future
I as a young person have received no reason for me to vote Tory, thanks Johnson
LOL - they could have given you a ferrari and you would still say no.
We all know who you prefer
I think under Cameron they at least tried to be moderate and propose some policies like gay marriage, etc. but they're not even trying anymore.
In a way I kind of respect them for that - but it does make my decision very easy.
Having said that, I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote is fairly useless. Think I will have to vote Lib Dem tactically.
What is the current equivalent of gay marriage? What policy could they offer?
Scrapping the 6% interest rate on tuition fees + help with apprenticeships and vocational training would be my choices.
Have a simple graduate tax that kicks in at the basic rate. 2% or whatever the actuaries estimate it needs to be to cover the costs. And.. The clincher... Allow all graduates with existing the debt the option of switching from their scheme to this for life graduate tax scheme.
While the debt feels harsh the level of it is actually pretty meaningless. If you listen to Martin Lewis (Money Savings Expert) about the current system it is working like a graduate tax for most graduates and for others it's nothing.
Exactly why I've moved from spoilt ballot to Con despite the fact that Mike Freer is a people's vote remainer tory.
Anecdotally, a very left wing friend of mine stunned me today by telling me he was voting Tory.
His reasoning was basically ‘Corbyn is a lying scumbag and anything is better than him.’
Ydoeuthr, I do not question the truth of this tale or your friend's integrity, but is he unaware that Johal life.
I burn no flames for Corbyn but he bears no comparison in the Lying Scumbag department.
Yes.
That’s why I was stunned.
Admittedly, most of your criticisms could actually be aimed at Corbyn as well. They are very similar people. Johnson is more devious, by virtue of being rather brighter, but that’s the only real difference.
It is a blessed relief that I do not have to vote for either. If I did have to choose just between the two, honesty would be only one of many criteria I would apply. Were I to decide however on just that one factor, Corbyn would have to win, by some distance.
Frankly, I don't think that particular case needs arguing.
I find this narrative about the PM being a liar fascinating, precisely because It shows how we each live in our own realities.
As far as you are concerned he has deliberately mislead people in a systematic way, and this marks him out as uniquely dishonest. I see him as, at worst, like any other politician and, at best, more likely to say what he thinks.
I can’t recall a political character that led to two such different, honestly held, views of them.
I think Peter's problem isn't that Boris is a liar but that he's a leaver. He seems perfectly accepting of all those remainer MPs that lied to get elected in 2017.
No, my problem is that he's a liar, and an unprincipled one. He would have no compunction about taking us out No Deal t the end of next year.
There is a good chance this will happen.
Interesting question.
I think a principled liar might be better than an unprincipled one.
I as a young person have received no reason for me to vote Tory, thanks Johnson
LOL - they could have given you a ferrari and you would still say no.
We all know who you prefer
I think under Cameron they at least tried to be moderate and propose some policies like gay marriage, etc. but they're not even trying anymore.
In a way I kind of respect them for that - but it does make my decision very easy.
Having said that, I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote is fairly useless. Think I will have to vote Lib Dem tactically.
What is the current equivalent of gay marriage? What policy could they offer?
Scrapping the 6% interest rate on tuition fees + help with apprenticeships and vocational training would be my choices.
Have a simple graduate tax that kicks in at the basic rate. 2% or whatever the actuaries estimate it needs to be to cover the costs. And.. The clincher... Allow all graduates with existing the debt the option of switching from their scheme to this for life graduate tax scheme.
While the debt feels harsh the level of it is actually pretty meaningless. If you listen to Martin Lewis (Money Savings Expert) about the current system it is working like a graduate tax for most graduates and for others it's nothing.
Yup, i fully understand it, its quite a psychological thing though.. A graduate tax was tricky when we were in the EU, something to do with unable to enforce tax rates across the EU, meaning essentially free tuition. Thats no longer a problem.
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
But if 1 then the impact of 2 will be small so suspect it is 1 and 2.
I can understand why the Tories wanted a safe manifesto but this is incredibly thin and the social care policy is pathetic .
They seem to have gone from one extreme to another after the May fiasco . And they’ve given Labour quite a few opportunities to attack them on a range of issues .
It seems to me that the Tories are putting everything on get Brexit done and that’s it.
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
Tory revisionism at its finest.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
Tory revisionism at its finest.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
Yes I am saying by not voting for the WA he didn't delay.
He was wrong to vote for May's deal IMO. I've been clear on that.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
But if 1 then the impact of 2 will be small so suspect it is 1 and 2.
once the number of seats has been reduced to 600 it'll become less controversial and it'd be hard to argue what we need is more politicians
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
Tory revisionism at its finest.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
Yes I am saying by not voting for the WA he didn't delay.
He was wrong to vote for May's deal IMO. I've been clear on that.
He dithered and delayed to destroy Mays premiership and dance into number 10. Since then he prefers action.
I thought the legislation says 600 and is in force. The Commission keeps preparing reports on this basis and parliament ignoring them.
No new legislation needed - just a motion accepting the report
Can the new Parliament accept the prior Commission's report?
And will the Commission produce a new report that might supersede that before the next election?
1) Yes, if they want to, the new Parliament can vote to implement the 2018 Boundary Commission report. Note the last Parliament never rejected it - it was never put to a vote.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
2) Is too late for the following election - and a majority Tory government would be mad to continue to prolong these ludicrously out of date boundaries.
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
But if 1 then the impact of 2 will be small so suspect it is 1 and 2.
once the number of seats has been reduced to 600 it'll become less controversial and it'd be hard to argue what we need is more politicians
But we currently subcontract out a lot of responsibilities to the EU, and the 73 MEPs who represent us on this. The government will need more ministers.
I as a young person have received no reason for me to vote Tory, thanks Johnson
LOL - they could have given you a ferrari and you would still say no.
We all know who you prefer
I think under Cameron they at least tried to be moderate and propose some policies like gay marriage, etc. but they're not even trying anymore.
In a way I kind of respect them for that - but it does make my decision very easy.
Having said that, I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote is fairly useless. Think I will have to vote Lib Dem tactically.
What is the current equivalent of gay marriage? What policy could they offer?
Scrapping the 6% interest rate on tuition fees + help with apprenticeships and vocational training would be my choices.
Have a simple graduate tax that kicks in at the basic rate. 2% or whatever the actuaries estimate it needs to be to cover the costs. And.. The clincher... Allow all graduates with existing the debt the option of switching from their scheme to this for life graduate tax scheme.
That would, I assume have been a problem when EU students could not be treated differently to nationals. We hold have been subsidizing those who did not pay tax to HNRC. Different now I guess.
I’d be interested to learn if I’ve misunderstood.
Edit: I see you subsequently made the same ipoint.
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
Tory revisionism at its finest.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
It's better than that. He ended up voting in favour of a deal that was so bad he resigned from cabinet over it.
Are you saying that at that time you had a detailed understanding of tripartite regulation, the inter-bank lending system, the mortgage market and the credit default swap issue, and realised it was all going wrong and needed more regulation?
Because if so, I am afraid I don’t believe you. Even most experienced bankers didn’t get these things (therein lay much of the problem).
I don't believe I told you what my age was. I said I was relatively young but I don't reveal personal details on the Internet, so let's have no more discussion about that thank you.
I supported more regulation which people like Vince Cable - to his credit - supported and warned of the crash before it happened. I don't claim to have a deep knowledge of regulation, just that in my short experience unfettered capitalism always leads to disaster.
You said you were a university student in 2017. I am assuming that was undergraduate but let’s assume you did postgrad work (as several posters here have). You might therefore have been 25 in June 2017. That would put your DOB sometime in the early 1990s - around 1992 at the earliest. So you would have been at best 15 when the crisis hit.
Of course, you might be a mature student. But you have also repeatedly said you are a ‘young’ person in your mid-twenties.
You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say you are young and can speak for your demographic, and then that you were wise to highly complex economic events when you would have barely left primary school. That merely makes you look silly.
You can say you now support greater regulation and with hindsight NewLabour were wrong. That’s no problem. After all, those of us around at the time mostly missed the key weaknesses as well so we can hardly criticise you for using hindsight. I was doing a Masters in politics and economics and I missed most of the warning signs (my very confident prediction was of a London house price crash, which shows what I knew). But don’t try To have it both ways.
If it makes you feel better my father, who was hugely focused on understanding the London property market at the time (with 40 years experience in the topic) also expected a crash.
I think everyone who tried to play Nostradamus ended up with egg on their face. In my case I was lucky it didn't matter in any significant way!
My father still smirks about selling everything with 2% of the market peak in ‘99
Repeated the trick he did in ‘87
(He was the third best performing U.K. investment manager from 1970-1999)
Boris complains about dither and delay. How many times did he vote against Brexit?
Zero.
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
Tory revisionism at its finest.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
It's better than that. He ended up voting in favour of a deal that was so bad he resigned from cabinet over it.
Comments
Economics has a poor record at forecasting, but it is good at analysing what has happened. If we (in the broadest sense) realised that economics is best used as an analytical tool for reasoning about the past and guiding our decision making in the future, rather than expecting economists to tell us what will happen and when, we would probably make better choices. We ought to take economic rules of thumb more seriously, and forecasts less seriously.
p.s. And never trust anyone who says "this time it's different", they are almost always wrong.
I like moderator, preses and convener.
He seems perfectly accepting of all those remainer MPs that lied to get elected in 2017.
Most here know that Peter Lilley gave a damning speech in Parliament that predicted what Labour's deregulation of the banking sector would risk.
I sold MU on the points spread at the start of the season and it is now showing a very healthy profit. Should I cash out now before they sack OGS and appoint The Poch?
Answers please asap. I reckon I have until Tuesday.
Nite all.
2) Whether or not 1) happens, with no further legislation the Boundary Commission will issue its next report in September 2023 - with 600 seats, based on the February 2021 Electoral register. As with the 2018 report, Parliament would have to vote to implement the 2023 report.
3) In order to change 2) - ie to get the Boundary Commission to do something different (eg 650 seats) - new legislation is required.
There is a good chance this will happen.
Now if Man Utd were about to sack Woodward that would be a different story.
That allowed banks to experiment in hedge fund trading with derivatives. To finance this trading banks demanded more dodgy mortgages to support the sale of these derivatives.
In reality you could say it started in 2007 in the US with the subprime mortgage market fiasco.
We should not really be calling it the Labour Financial Crash as Labour just happened to be in power when global events took a turn for the worse. Had the Tories been in power we would be calling it The Tory Crash. The portents for another catastrophe are brewing away in the background and a hard Brexit will make things worse.
And in any case, hasn't the history of Britain's relationship with Europe over the last century been disproportionately determined by its Balliol prime ministers? Asquith fought a world war centred on Europe, Macmillan tried to take us in, Heath succeeded, and Boris may yet take us out again...
So either 1) needs to be accepted or 3) is necessary.
The timing is now out of synch - it was obviously designed for a GE in May 2025.
This whole area does cause a lot of confusion. The easiest way to look at it is:
1) Primary legislation is needed to change what the Boundary Commission does - eg how many seats, date when report issued, date of electoral register which is used.
2) Whenever the Boundary Commission actually issues a report, it just needs a Statutory Instrument to be passed by Parliament to implement it.
I assume Boris would work on basis that Parliament won't implement 600 seats. So he needs new legislation - to revert to 650 seats and if he is sensible legislation will say next review is based on February 2020 Electoral Register, with Report to be issued in September 2022.
1. People are REALLY engaged. Very few "don't cares". Most Tory voters are rock hard ("BREXIT ALL THE WAY!" "Just get it done!"), Labour voters fizzing with enthusiasm ("Would you like a poster?" "YES! Can I have three? I've got a bay window!") and there's a big personal vote for Stephen Morgan.
2. The LibDem tide felt as though it was ebbing, even though this was Southsea, which is a LibDem-held ward: Labour posters outnumbered LD ones by 4:1. Several ex-LD voters told me they were switching to Labour, for a mixture of reasons - support Morgan, stop a hard Brexit, but oppose Revoke ("I sympathise but it's not democratic to just cancel the damn thing"). A lone Tory-Labour switcher said she thought Corbyn's approach was right, though "I've never voted Labour in my life" - she looked scared, like someone thinking of doing karoake night at a grime club.
3. Two women spontaneously mentioned the Waspi promise as a reason to vote Labour ("I won't benefit myself but I sympathise with the ones who will"). More generally, lots of people mentioned non-Brexit issues - one said "the Tories and LibDems don't seem to have any other ideas, whereas you lot have too many, but that's a fault on the right side". Lots of interest in discussion, even though we were mostly on the doorstep in the dark (it's a myth that people won't open the door tp canvassers at night). Two ex-Labour were strongly anti-Corbyn and wrestling with what to do as they liked Morgan - one will back him, the other not, I think.
4. Usual weird encounters. One was clearly stoned and swayed on his feet as he tried to be polite. Another suavely declined interest in Labour, shut the door and then shouted to his partner "That was fucking Greenpeace!"
Overall impression: moving to Labour if that's typical, but a few streets in one ward is no kind of sample.
"“Both are awful prospects, but I think a no-deal Brexit could cause far more damage to our future economic success than Corbyn.”
It is another sign of strange times that Ken Clarke, who never gave any quarter in many decades of battling Labour, can think that his own party could inflict a worst fate on Britain than a Corbyn government."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/07/ken-clarke-interview-andrew-rawnsley-lost-tory-whip
Too right its no sample.. pop out and chat to every white van man you see and see what response you get.
Edit - just seen in next post. Thanks.
We had a recession under the prior Tory government.
The prior recession was Q3 1990 - Q3 1991. But every single year from 1984 to 1990 the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.
1984 43.53
1985 43.4
1986 41.76
1987 39.14
1988 34.98
1989 29.26
1990 26.64
Debt to GDP was slashed over the 80s so when the recession hit countercyclical spending could kick in.
Brown hubristically assumed that he "ended boom and bust" and increased spending every year.
2002 30.05
2003 31.26
2004 32.52
2005 35.6
2006 36.67
2007 37.25
After 16 years of economic growth Brown hubristically increased the deficit and increased debt annually so when the inevitable recession hit we were screwed.
You will also note the date of the article and the date of the mad, mad Labour manifesto.
There really is no comparison.
Plus we have a deal do we not?
Go figure.
"The government does not have a Ministry of Silly Walks, but Labour has a Department of Silly Ideas, which is the only explanation for its four-day week, a populist idea not achieving much popularity among voters. They know it does not smell right — that, after a decade of productivity stagnation, the idea that it can be delivered by productivity gains is fantasy. They know it is undeliverable for large parts of the public sector, including the NHS, whose workers are being offered an immediate pay rise, and in which productivity gains are even more elusive.
For the four-day week, read the Labour manifesto, a collection of unaffordable, backward-looking aspirations that voters should regard with incredulity. We can only hope that they do."
https://yg-infographics-data.s3.amazonaws.com/uk-elections-2017/figures/party_constituency_vote_shares.csv
I'm interested to have another look at Scotland in preperation of the 2019 MRP
I always get a wee frisson when they use bra in the Scandi dramas.
https://twitter.com/sunscotnational/status/1198576246281494529?s=21
Therefore they will never happen.
Ross, Skye and Lochaber prediction
Con 24.7
LD 20.9
SNP 38.8
Lab 13.9
Actual Result
Con 24.8
LD 20.9
SNP 40.2
Lab 12.2
Personally I would have required the ratings agencies to have skin in the game - any item they rate at investment grade should have a personal cost of a %of the fund payable by the executives signing off if the item fails. If they trust their own rating then they'll be fine with that, won't they?
Woman Arguing for a Superior Position Invariably.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50539242
I think a principled liar might be better than an unprincipled one.
Makes them easier to predict
He voted against May's deal, but he never voted for an extension. Contrary to the myth some like to spread here we didn't remain because May's deal was rejected - we remained because we extended.
They seem to have gone from one extreme to another after the May fiasco . And they’ve given Labour quite a few opportunities to attack them on a range of issues .
It seems to me that the Tories are putting everything on get Brexit done and that’s it.
Are you saying by not voting for the WA he didn’t delay? Are you saying when he changed his mind and then voted for Mays deal he hadn’t dithered?
He was wrong to vote for May's deal IMO. I've been clear on that.
I’d be interested to learn if I’ve misunderstood.
Edit: I see you subsequently made the same ipoint.
The man is a joke. Incredibly he is also PM.
Repeated the trick he did in ‘87
(He was the third best performing U.K. investment manager from 1970-1999)