The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
That’s a very good article, thanks for posting. The entrepreneur and the small business,and are the engines of a successful economy, government needs to make sure they can thrive.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
Have we ever had a government which built an economy that delivered for everyone?
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
That’s a very good article, thanks for posting. The entrepreneur and the small business,and are the engines of a successful economy, government needs to make sure they can thrive.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
Have we ever had a government which built an economy that delivered for everyone?
Surely if Corbyn's Labour is about anything, it's the opposite of 'rejecting ... the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation'. New Labour led on from the old Crosland idea that 'the economic problem has been solved', we've hit on the formula for sustainable and even accelerating growth and just need to use tax revenues wisely. PFI makes sense if you assume the extra bill down the line would be swallowed up by ever accelerating growth and tax revenue.
The whole point of Corbyn-era pressure for a proper industrial strategy is to say: we haven't 'solved the economic problem', we need to think about how we can rather than pretend it's the best of all possible worlds re: 'wealth creation' already.
Apologies for going off topic, but I just read this incredible statistic:
"The power and devastation of Harvey is incredible. Estimates put the rainfall totals at 20-28 TRILLION gallons. For perspective, the entire Chesapeake Bay holds 18 trillion gallons."
For those who don't know, the Chesapeake covers 4,500 square miles, and 28 trillion gallons would cover that entire area to close to 11 meters.
As you're happy to mix metric and imperial units (meters and miles), I'm unsure whether your trillion is a US trillion or a British trillion.
My first instinct is not for the state to cut taxes when it builds wealth, but for it to spend. For me that helps more people more effectively more quickly. My understanding is that a Tory would disagree, believing that returning money to the population is the way to go. I respect that point of view and see its attractions. I just do not share it.
The state builds wealth?
Oh dear.
Ha! Not only that, but private wealth building surely enables lower taxes rates by increasing the tax base.
US trillion, 10 to the 12.
PS converted square miles to square kilometers and gallons to liters in order to simplify calculations as to depth.
[edit for gross error] I think the US trillion has carried the day, andwikipedia agrees that it's a million million in both us and English.
I find inches of rain to be a much more intuitive metric than litres/hectare or whatever. An inch, for those interested, is 27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre.
Incidentally, the End Times are on us; Nork is saying Guam's next, Trump is saying the days for talking are over. I am surprised at the lack of coverage of this.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
That’s a very good article, thanks for posting. The entrepreneur and the small business,and are the engines of a successful economy, government needs to make sure they can thrive.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
Have we ever had a government which built an economy that delivered for everyone?
Governments go rotten when they pander the economic and social interests of their client votes.
Thank you for your earlier tip on the Granada TV series about the Spanish Civil War. I had never come across it before but I am going through it now and I fully agree with your comments on its excellence.
And what a beautiful voice Frank Finlay had. I'd never fully appreciated it from his other work.
Apologies for going off topic, but I just read this incredible statistic:
"The power and devastation of Harvey is incredible. Estimates put the rainfall totals at 20-28 TRILLION gallons. For perspective, the entire Chesapeake Bay holds 18 trillion gallons."
For those who don't know, the Chesapeake covers 4,500 square miles, and 28 trillion gallons would cover that entire area to close to 11 meters.
As you're happy to mix metric and imperial units (meters and miles), I'm unsure whether your trillion is a US trillion or a British trillion.
My first instinct is not for the state to cut taxes when it builds wealth, but for it to spend. For me that helps more people more effectively more quickly. My understanding is that a Tory would disagree, believing that returning money to the population is the way to go. I respect that point of view and see its attractions. I just do not share it.
The state builds wealth?
Oh dear.
Ha! Not only that, but private wealth building surely enables lower taxes rates by increasing the tax base.
US trillion, 10 to the 12.
PS converted square miles to square kilometers and gallons to liters in order to simplify calculations as to depth.
[edit for gross error] I think the US trillion has carried the day, andwikipedia agrees that it's a million million in both us and English.
I find inches of rain to be a much more intuitive metric than litres/hectare or whatever. An inch, for those interested, is 27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre.
Incidentally, the End Times are on us; Nork is saying Guam's next, Trump is saying the days for talking are over. I am surprised at the lack of coverage of this.
Apologies for going off topic, but I just read this incredible statistic:
"The power and devastation of Harvey is incredible. Estimates put the rainfall totals at 20-28 TRILLION gallons. For perspective, the entire Chesapeake Bay holds 18 trillion gallons."
For those who don't know, the Chesapeake covers 4,500 square miles, and 28 trillion gallons would cover that entire area to close to 11 meters.
As you're happy to mix metric and imperial units (meters and miles), I'm unsure whether your trillion is a US trillion or a British trillion.
My first instinct is not for the state to cut taxes when it builds wealth, but for it to spend. For me that helps more people more effectively more quickly. My understanding is that a Tory would disagree, believing that returning money to the population is the way to go. I respect that point of view and see its attractions. I just do not share it.
The state builds wealth?
Oh dear.
Ha! Not only that, but private wealth building surely enables lower taxes rates by increasing the tax base.
US trillion, 10 to the 12.
PS converted square miles to square kilometers and gallons to liters in order to simplify calculations as to depth.
[edit for gross error] I think the US trillion has carried the day, andwikipedia agrees that it's a million million in both us and English.
I find inches of rain to be a much more intuitive metric than litres/hectare or whatever. An inch, for those interested, is 27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre.
Incidentally, the End Times are on us; Nork is saying Guam's next, Trump is saying the days for talking are over. I am surprised at the lack of coverage of this.
"27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre." Tons: US or British? And Imperial gallons or US gallons?
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
My impression is that YouGov isn't that far away. My sister had her silver anniversary at the weekend. It was a small affair. Six under 25s were present. My firm impression was that all six were Corbynites, including the two professionals and the one in the armed forces.
As a generation, they feel completely shafted by their elders. Brexit is the prime example of this, but just an example.
I'm not surprised, even though no-one in that age group that I know ever talks about politics (In fact, no-one I know ever talks about politics - obviously I don't move in the right circles.)
IMHO it's largely the result of shedloads of good intentions over decades having horrifically unintended consequences that were never addressed.
Added to which, when we were just growing up, people about my age had it hammered into them that the state was going to look after them from the cradle to the grave.
It's a great pity that Mrs May's small attempts to redress the balance died still-born.
Brexit gives us the opportunity to limit the number of unqualified but enthusiastic Europeans who come here for the employment their own countries are not giving them. Whether that is a good idea or whether it would be damaging to our economy is rather less clear but Alastair's last paragraph is wrong.
The reason we have found non EU immigration so hard to control is that the previous generations of immigrants from the sub continent continue to go there for spouses and work hard to bring over family members. No doubt we will have similar problems with many of our EU immigrants in a generation or two but at the moment they are not remotely comparable.
The other point I would make is that the Home Office is just completely overwhelmed by the scale of the movement of people. It is absurd to argue that senior officials should be reviewing individual cases when they are literally dealing with hundreds of thousands of cases at any one time. The backlog is immense and growing.
Enforcement by means of removal is expensive and the Courts interfere far too often. Letters have been written to Judges explaining that every cancellation costs over £10K but they are still routinely granted. In fairness to the Judges this is partly because the quality of decision making at the lower level is so poor as to fail very basic tests of rationality and reasonableness and Judges are aware that those who have claimed to be homosexual, for example, face genuinely life threatening situations if they are returned to several countries.
I think that the only realistic solution here is some form of amnesty. We simply cannot cope or police the present numbers. Even if we spent several billion a year more on this the system would still creak and groan.
Good post. However when (IIRC) Nick Clegg proposed such an amnesty the right wing Press had, more or less, to be restrained from physical assault.
Incidentally I see now that there is a 'surprise’ surge in prisoner numbers causing severe problems. The blame for staffing inadequacy can, of course, be laid firmly at the door of the last Home Sec, one T May.
Staffing cut backs and related decisions on reducing experience, stem from Ken Clarke's time at Justice and Osborne as the Chancellor.
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
Apologies for going off topic, but I just read this incredible statistic:
"The power and devastation of Harvey is incredible. Estimates put the rainfall totals at 20-28 TRILLION gallons. For perspective, the entire Chesapeake Bay holds 18 trillion gallons."
For those who don't know, the Chesapeake covers 4,500 square miles, and 28 trillion gallons would cover that entire area to close to 11 meters.
As you're happy to mix metric and imperial units (meters and miles), I'm unsure whether your trillion is a US trillion or a British trillion.
My first instinct is not for the state to cut taxes when it builds wealth, but for it to spend. For me that helps more people more effectively more quickly. My understanding is that a Tory would disagree, believing that returning money to the population is the way to go. I respect that point of view and see its attractions. I just do not share it.
The state builds wealth?
Oh dear.
Ha! Not only that, but private wealth building surely enables lower taxes rates by increasing the tax base.
US trillion, 10 to the 12.
PS converted square miles to square kilometers and gallons to liters in order to simplify calculations as to depth.
[edit for gross error] I think the US trillion has carried the day, andwikipedia agrees that it's a million million in both us and English.
I find inches of rain to be a much more intuitive metric than litres/hectare or whatever. An inch, for those interested, is 27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre.
Incidentally, the End Times are on us; Nork is saying Guam's next, Trump is saying the days for talking are over. I am surprised at the lack of coverage of this.
"27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre." Tons: US or British? And Imperial gallons or US gallons?
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
Good idea.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Can anyone foresee any unintended consequences of cutting £8.5bn to the EU that could cost us way more that the superficial savings?
The state creates a framework within which wealth can (or cannot) be created, more precisely. Without state investments in various public services and infrastructure, the creation of enforceable laws by an independent judiciary and various incentives to take risks the business in which I am a shareholder would not have got off the ground, for example.
Protection of person and private property in law and in fact, timely and peaceful resolution of disputes, transport and communication infrastructure, and confidence in the currency of trade are only the starting point of the State's input into wealth creation.
I am a late and rather reluctant convert to Obama's clumsily stated view to entrepreneurs that "You didn't build that". Sure, without risk takers, there will be little wealth creation. But quite aside from a business environment that is entrepreneur-friendly, entrepreneurs rely on a lot more help from both the state and other actors than they usually admit. And those who are successful probably owe more to dumb luck than they are likely to admit.
Whatever the facts, however, we need more and better entrepreneurs and we need to create a business environment where that is encouraged.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Can anyone foresee any unintended consequences of cutting £8.5bn to the EU that could cost us way more that the superficial savings?
Yes. But the decision to leave was neither one issue nor purely an economic thing. Those who chose leave saw non-economic benefits which, to them, offset both the known and the unknown consequences of leaving.
The fact that there is uncertainty about the costs and benefits of a course of action does not necessarily make it a wrong decision. In fact, in most truly complex decisions, I'd argue that cost benefit analyses - at least ones expressed in monetary terms - are nearly pointless.
My point with regards to Pakistan is that about the only foreseeable benefit of ending the funding is the money savings. Virtually all the other known and unknown consequences are negative.
Whilst I agree on much that Alastair writes I do disagree on one important point.
He says that more money should be put into infrastructure and government services to cope with the increased population. This is completely the wrong answer. We need to make a choice between immigration and the welfare state and to me the answer is clear. We should welcome increased migration but at the same time massively cut the welfare state which is going to be untenable anyway sooner or later with or without further increases in population.
Anyone who wants to come here who has work or is independently self sufficient should be free to do so no matter where they come from as long as they understand they should have no access to public services and no receipt of welfare or benefits.
The only reason for refusing access should be security or criminal reasons.
On the other hand, the EU position paper makes no attempt to justify the legal basis of the demands; it merely lists a bunch of stuff without explaining where any obligation to pay them might arise. The original tweet was perfectly correct to point this out, if perhaps not the ideal medium in which to make the point.
For example: they go on about the 'Reste à liquider', a vague concept relating to stuff they've said they'd like to finance some day. However, where's the treaty provision where we've agreed to pay towards this on exit?
Suppose the 2015-2020 plan agreed to fund a new motorway in Poland. The Poles then need to go through the planning process, buy the land etc before building the motorway, which is when the EU funds will be released. This could happen well after 2020 and would be included in the Reste a liquider, which are commitments that have been entered into but not yet funded. The UK government asked the EU Council to bulk up the RaL so as to minimise current expenditure on the present round of funding.
I understand that, but the contributions of member states are agreed for each budget period, and the liability whilst you are a member is fixed by that, not by the reste à liquider. That budget contribution can only be increased with the consent of the member states, and it could go own if they so wished, whatever commitments the EU had made. Clearly, therefore, when we leave (and our treaty obligations cease), we no longer owe anything towards the reste à liquider.
In support of this, when net contributor countries (notably Austria) joined, they didn't get reduced contributions in the early years as a result of the fact that much of the spending was already lumped into the pre-accession reste à liquider of the existing member states. They can't have it both ways, can they?
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Can anyone foresee any unintended consequences of cutting £8.5bn to the EU that could cost us way more that the superficial savings?
On the other hand, the EU position paper makes no attempt to justify the legal basis of the demands; it merely lists a bunch of stuff without explaining where any obligation to pay them might arise. The original tweet was perfectly correct to point this out, if perhaps not the ideal medium in which to make the point.
For example: they go on about the 'Reste à liquider', a vague concept relating to stuff they've said they'd like to finance some day. However, where's the treaty provision where we've agreed to pay towards this on exit?
Suppose the 2015-2020 plan agreed to fund a new motorway in Poland. The Poles then need to go through the planning process, buy the land etc before building the motorway, which is when the EU funds will be released. This could happen well after 2020 and would be included in the Reste a liquider, which are commitments that have been entered into but not yet funded. The UK government asked the EU Council to bulk up the RaL so as to minimise current expenditure on the present round of funding.
I understand that, but the contributions of member states are agreed for each budget period, and the liability whilst you are a member is fixed by that, not by the reste à liquider. That budget contribution can only be increased with the consent of the member states, and it could go own if they so wished, whatever commitments the EU had made. Clearly, therefore, when we leave (and our treaty obligations cease), we no longer owe anything towards the reste à liquider.
In support of this, when net contributor countries (notably Austria) joined, they didn't get reduced contributions in the early years as a result of the fact that much of the spending was already lumped into the pre-accession reste à liquider of the existing member states. They can't have it both ways, can they?
They think they can. Hence, their belief that liabilities belong to individual States, but assets belong to EU institutions.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
This kind of "wealth creation" needs to be regulated away;
The tories don't care though. They don't see protecting the vulnerable as the state's responsibility. Unfettered capitalism is the solution to everything. Or something like that.
Even the tory client vote is getting sick of this sh*te.
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
Good idea.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Perhaps it's an unorthodox view, but I really don't think we should be increasing the national debt and handing over £374 million (thanks @Sunil_Prasannan !) to another state to avoid undefined unintended consequences. As far as I'm concerned, any special responsibility Britain has towards Pakistan lapsed in 1947. Most of the people the security services are worried about were born in this country, not Pakistan.
Why can't a country that actually has a budget surplus give them aid? Merkel loves to signal how much of a humanitarian she is; perhaps she could use some of Germany's €23bn budget surplus.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
This kind of "wealth creation" needs to be regulated away;
The tories don't care though. They don't see protecting the vulnerable as the state's responsibility. Unfettered capitalism is the solution to everything. Or something like that.
Even the tory client vote is getting sick of this sh*te.
I am neither an ultra-capitalist nor a Sky fan, but I struggle to see how Sky should or could have done anything about that. Man takes out package deal -> two years pass -> man gets Alzheimers -> two years pass -> his family get a look at his financial affairs for the first time and query whether he still wants all that Sky. Who actually is at fault here?
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
Good idea.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Perhaps it's an unorthodox view, but I really don't think we should be increasing the national debt and handing over £374 million (thanks @Sunil_Prasannan !) to another state to avoid undefined unintended consequences. As far as I'm concerned, any special responsibility Britain has towards Pakistan lapsed in 1947. Most of the people the security services are worried about were born in this country, not Pakistan.
Why can't a country that actually has a budget surplus give them aid? Merkel loves to signal how much of a humanitarian she is; perhaps she could use some of Germany's €23bn budget surplus.
Not all of the consequences are undefined. Some are very clearly understood.
International aid falls into broadly two categories: - humanitarian, morally-given aid - self-interested aid - an investment in one form of forward defence or another.
Regardless of budgetary status, the latter category makes sense. And, in relation to the former category, your comment raises the interesting question of whether the profligate should never be charitable, or rather whether the profligate have the right to impose all humanitarian costs upon those who are not.
In my view, most aid to Pakistan falls into the latter category.
On the other hand, the ........ .However, where's the treaty provision where we've agreed to pay towards this on exit?
Suppose the 2015-2020 plan agreed to fund a new motorway in Poland. The Poles then need to go through the planning process, buy the land etc before building the motorway, which is when the EU funds will be released. This could happen well after 2020 and would be included in the Reste a liquider, which are commitments that have been entered into but not yet funded. The UK government asked the EU Council to bulk up the RaL so as to minimise current expenditure on the present round of funding.
I understand that, but the contributions of member states are agreed for each budget period, and the liability whilst you are a member is fixed by that, not by the reste à liquider. That budget contribution can only be increased with the consent of the member states, and it could go own if they so wished, whatever commitments the EU had made. Clearly, therefore, when we leave (and our treaty obligations cease), we no longer owe anything towards the reste à liquider.
In support of this, when net contributor countries (notably Austria) joined, they didn't get reduced contributions in the early years as a result of the fact that much of the spending was already lumped into the pre-accession reste à liquider of the existing member states. They can't have it both ways, can they?
It looks as if more and more stuff is paid in arrears, presumably as a compromise between recipient countries who are happy to get more stuff paid for, albeit late, and donor countries like the UK who want to put off the evil hour. Legally, the situation is what a competent court decides it to be, but that depends on finding a mutually agreeable court willing to take on the case. And do we really want to suspend Brexit until they come to a judgment? Otherwise it's a negotiation. It's true the amounts are less objective than the EU pretend them to be, but us lclaiming that none of it is legally necessary doesn't cut it either. The EU put this in the initial things to be decided because they reckon that's their best chance of getting the clarity and the amounts they looking for. Maybe they are wrong about that, but in that case we are probably not serious about the Brexit negotiations in the context of us relying on their goodwill for a continued relationship and their being harmed by by our actions and not owing us any favours. If we walk away, at some point we will come back to them and the first thing they will mention is the exit fee. So they are probably correct to assume we will pay a somewhat haggled amount.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold to £1 million so they will not pay any inheritance tax if they inherit part of the value of their parents or grandparents houses and other assets. Unemployment is historically low and they raised the minimum wage
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
A loan rate of 6% + is unreasonable. And whereas, borrowing £50,000 to get a degree from a good university is money well spent, £50,000 to get a degree from a poor university is money thrown down the drain.
Some complaints about older people are unjust, though. Working class people of my generation had to cope with high unemployment, and very few went to university. Working and middle class people of my parents' generation generally grew up in much grottier circumstances than today's 18-24 year olds did.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold to £1 million so they will not pay any inheritance tax if they inherit part of the value of their parents or grandparents houses and other assets. Unemployment is historically low and they raised the minimum wage
Which has largely been banked.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
This kind of "wealth creation" needs to be regulated away;
The tories don't care though. They don't see protecting the vulnerable as the state's responsibility. Unfettered capitalism is the solution to everything. Or something like that.
Even the tory client vote is getting sick of this sh*te.
I am neither an ultra-capitalist nor a Sky fan, but I struggle to see how Sky should or could have done anything about that. Man takes out package deal -> two years pass -> man gets Alzheimers -> two years pass -> his family get a look at his financial affairs for the first time and query whether he still wants all that Sky. Who actually is at fault here?
In my experience, utility companies try and sell you all sorts of crap.
You just have to be firm and say 'no', but not everyone feels comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do so.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
Protection of person and private property in law and in fact, timely and peaceful resolution of disputes, transport and communication infrastructure, and confidence in the currency of trade are only the starting point of the State's input into wealth creation.
I am a late and rather reluctant convert to Obama's clumsily stated view to entrepreneurs that "You didn't build that". Sure, without risk takers, there will be little wealth creation. But quite aside from a business environment that is entrepreneur-friendly, entrepreneurs rely on a lot more help from both the state and other actors than they usually admit. And those who are successful probably owe more to dumb luck than they are likely to admit.
Whatever the facts, however, we need more and better entrepreneurs and we need to create a business environment where that is encouraged.
It was ever thus.
'The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.'
I think the old family who owned Penrhyn Castle are perfect exemplars of how wealth creation has always worked, beneath this 'the market' myth. They made a fortune through the slave trade and owned plantations in Jamaica (after an early member of their family had been a captain in Cromwell's army which invaded Jamaica), and in politics were strong anti-abolitionists in the House of Lords. Through the enclosure of common lands in Wales and the displacement of peasant communities (which they also supported politically in the House of Lords) they converted their land into grazing land for sheep, helping to create a landless mass of wage-labourers. They re-invested the cash they had made in the slave-trade into slate mining, employing this displaced ex-peasantry and creating what was then the largest slate mining quarry in the world. They supported anti-trade union legislation in the House of Lords which helped them to break the strikes in their own businesses. They (well, their slaves, peasants, slate-miners and overseers mostly...) created a ton of wealth, but which is due to 'the market' and which is 'the state'?
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold to £1 million so they will not pay any inheritance tax if they inherit part of the value of their parents or grandparents houses and other assets. Unemployment is historically low and they raised the minimum wage
Which has largely been banked.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
If Corbyn gets in it won't be as McDonnell has promised to reverse the IHT cut.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
A loan rate of 6% + is unreasonable. And whereas, borrowing £50,000 to get a degree from a good university is money well spent, £50,000 to get a degree from a poor university is money thrown down the drain.
Some complaints about older people are unjust, though. Working class people of my generation had to cope with high unemployment, and very few went to university. Working and middle class people of my parents' generation generally grew up in much grottier circumstances than today's 18-24 year olds did.
Yes. Of course there is a counter argument of entitlement and me me me.
That's where Corbyn (and his acolytes) get it wrong. Most of the young aren't socialist (at least no more so than the young have ever been) and do want consumer choice and to buy their own home. They are also highly individualistic (possibly more so than any other previous generation) and that comes across in personal identity and choice, and recognises very few traditional social structures like family, community, nations and religions as overriding, or having much of a part to play at all, in any of that.
But they've been promised it all on a plate, and Corbyn talks progressive idealistic language with mood music that chimes.
It's not the job of the British government alone to provide sanctuary to gay men who want to live in the open. It could have a more meaningful impact if we said we will no longer give aid to countries where homosexuality is illegal. As we send Pakistan the best part of £1bn per year, it would help the deficit too.
Good idea.
That's the problem with one-issue thinking. Cutting £1bn per year in aid to Pakistan could very easily, and foreseeably, have unintended consequences that cost us way more than the superficial savings.
Perhaps it's an unorthodox view, but I really don't think we should be increasing the national debt and handing over £374 million (thanks @Sunil_Prasannan !) to another state to avoid undefined unintended consequences.
We give £8.5 billion a year to the EU.
8.5 billion / 374 million = 22.7 times as much aid.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Tawney did say 'a society could never be too poor to have good economic relations, nor too rich to need them' or something like that. I can see Corbyn thinking that 'prosperity' isn't the same as what you might think it is - all the toys we want but more difficult to get a house or healthcare. But the idea that he or any one else in his circle might not think 'prosperity is a good thing' is just wrong.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
When Thatcher was in office she could say this with passion and conviction: "It doesn’t matter to me who you are or what your background is. If you want to use your own efforts to work harder - yes, I'm with you all the way!"
If anyone in the current Conservative parliamentary party said that it just wouldn't be credible and there wouldn't be any policy narrative to back it up, even if you set aside the inherently 'blood and soil' theme imposed by the referendum result.
We need to be a country with a future again, not just a country with a past.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold to £1 million so they will not pay any inheritance tax if they inherit part of the value of their parents or grandparents houses and other assets. Unemployment is historically low and they raised the minimum wage
Which has largely been banked.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
If Corbyn gets in it won't be as McDonnell has promised to reverse the IHT cut.
IHT is a huge issue for the 40-50s in particular
The only chance the Tories have IMHO is to swiftly deal with Brexit, show it's not all that bad, put it behind them, get a new inspirational leader, and come up with a compelling economic and social plan for the 2020s that plays heavily on optimism and a plan for Britain.
It must be about making Corbyn and McDonnell look like yesterday's men by then.
Incidentally I see now that there is a 'surprise’ surge in prisoner numbers causing severe problems. The blame for staffing inadequacy can, of course, be laid firmly at the door of the last Home Sec, one T May.
Another one for my ever-increasing collection of cases where Theresa May is blamed for things which were nothing to do with her.
Point of information. I've pointed out previously that the 2011 Census estimate was just 100,000 different to the mid year estimate. If Mr Meeks wants to cast aspersions on the quality of official statistics he can produce some hard evidence.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Tawney did say 'a society could never be too poor to have good economic relations, nor too rich to need them' or something like that. I can see Corbyn thinking that 'prosperity' isn't the same as what you might think it is - all the toys we want but more difficult to get a house or healthcare. But the idea that he or any one else in his circle might not think 'prosperity is a good thing' is just wrong.
But, would he or they regard private ownership of houses as being at all desirable.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold and they raised the minimum wage
Which has largely been banked.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
If Corbyn gets in it won't be as McDonnell has promised to reverse the IHT cut.
IHT is a huge issue for the 40-50s in particular
The only chance the Tories have IMHO is to swiftly deal with Brexit, show it's not all that bad, put it behind them, get a new inspirational leader, and come up with a compelling economic and social plan for the 2020s that plays heavily on optimism and a plan for Britain.
It must be about making Corbyn and McDonnell look like yesterday's men by then.
The Tories have already won most seats in 3 consecutive general elections, at most they probably have one more general election win in them maximum.
The best thing to do is to get Boris in, call a 2019 or 2020 general election, play on a tax cut agenda, ease back a bit on austerity and commit to end free movement and big payments to the EU while Labour commits to keep free movement uncontrolled and large payments to the EU for years.
Incidentally I see now that there is a 'surprise’ surge in prisoner numbers causing severe problems. The blame for staffing inadequacy can, of course, be laid firmly at the door of the last Home Sec, one T May.
Another one for my ever-increasing collection of cases where Theresa May is blamed for things which were nothing to do with her.
A career in politics is all about that risk: getting blamed for things you're not responsible for when it goes wrong in exchange for getting the credit for things you're not responsible for when it seems to be going well. Brown had the highs and lows of both.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Tawney did say 'a society could never be too poor to have good economic relations, nor too rich to need them' or something like that. I can see Corbyn thinking that 'prosperity' isn't the same as what you might think it is - all the toys we want but more difficult to get a house or healthcare. But the idea that he or any one else in his circle might not think 'prosperity is a good thing' is just wrong.
But, would he or they regard private ownership of houses as being at all desirable.
Far too much discussion on Corbyn isn't linked to anything he's ever said. Tories talking to Tories about what they imagine Corbyn thinks based on what Mrs Thatcher used to say about socialism on the telly.
Incidentally I see now that there is a 'surprise’ surge in prisoner numbers causing severe problems. The blame for staffing inadequacy can, of course, be laid firmly at the door of the last Home Sec, one T May.
Another one for my ever-increasing collection of cases where Theresa May is blamed for things which were nothing to do with her.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
When Thatcher was in office she could say this with passion and conviction: "It doesn’t matter to me who you are or what your background is. If you want to use your own efforts to work harder - yes, I'm with you all the way!"
If anyone in the current Conservative parliamentary party said that it just wouldn't be credible and there wouldn't be any policy narrative to back it up, even if you set aside the inherently 'blood and soil' theme imposed by the referendum result.
We need to be a country with a future again, not just a country with a past.
Putting aside your none too subtle tangential references to the EU, yes, I broadly agree with the sentiment.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
They may well still believe that. I used to agree with it much more than I do now. It's all very well when the general population is either in ignorance of how much better off people elsewhere are, or a group is in agreement with the principle (like the Amish).
But now that the internet shows the whole world the lifestyles of the wealthy, it seems to me to be spitting in the wind to hope that average people will be content with less than they might otherwise have.
Being content with 'enough' is not a highly thought of principle, if it ever has been. Our ideas of what is 'enough' tend to expand.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
i am gobsmacked at the amount you can spend on Sky, if you pay for sport and recent movies, but people do. The complaint here is not about mis-selling, it's about not knowing about a change of circumstances which Sky had no way to know about.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
6% interest in a world where no one, but no one, except Wonga is lending or borrowing at over 1.5% always struck me as particularly shitty.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
TMay will not be fighting another GE, so that doesn't really matter.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Tawney did say 'a society could never be too poor to have good economic relations, nor too rich to need them' or something like that. I can see Corbyn thinking that 'prosperity' isn't the same as what you might think it is - all the toys we want but more difficult to get a house or healthcare. But the idea that he or any one else in his circle might not think 'prosperity is a good thing' is just wrong.
But, would he or they regard private ownership of houses as being at all desirable.
Far too much discussion on Corbyn isn't linked to anything he's ever said. Tories talking to Tories about what they imagine Corbyn thinks based on what Mrs Thatcher used to say about socialism on the telly.
Thanks for the link, although the references to ending RTB, rent controls, and security of tenure, do rather confirm my suspicions.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
6% interest in a world where no one, but no one, except Wonga is lending or borrowing at over 1.5% always struck me as particularly shitty.
Very much so. Some parents are remortgaging their houses to pay off the student debts of their children as the rate of interest on the mortgage is lower than that on the student loan.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
And a 2-3% shift from the Conservatives to Labour gives Corbyn a majority.
The potential for big LAB gains in Scotland from the SNP completely changes these equations. We also don't know whether the Tories will struggle on with TMay or not.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
Not really, regardless of her underperformance at the general election the key poll on this is from Survation last month. In the main poll the Tories were on 38.8% under May against Corbyn's Labour.
They also had the Tories on 38.5% under Davis, 36.7% under Hammond, 37% under Rudd and 38.9% under Boris. So only Boris took the Tories to a higher voteshare than May did. Yesterday ICM had the Tories on 42%, unchanged since the general election
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
They raised the IHT threshold to £1 million so they will not pay any inheritance tax if they inherit part of the value of their parents or grandparents houses and other assets. Unemployment is historically low and they raised the minimum wage
Which has largely been banked.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Its all too close for comfort. Some of the demographic trends which GE2017 uncovered were very disturbing from a Tory perspective. The party requires much better leadership - someone from the 2010 or 2015 intakes. Boris is a busted flush and Davis is yesterday''s man. They just will not do. The deadwood needs to be cleared out now so that there is the chance of an inspiring contest in 2019.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
The under 24's - in particular, those without substantial inheritances - are f*cked. They have little chance of getting on in life through their own efforts.
The future middle class is going to be dominated by those lucky enough to receive £100k+ inheritances.
Which is the way the tory client vote want things to be.
I haven't listened to all of this yet but the French ambassador to the UK summed up the Brexit vote quite pithily: "You had some ideologues in London voting against the EU, and people in the provinces voting against London."
I haven't listened to all of this yet but the French ambassador to the UK summed up the Brexit vote quite pithily: "You had some ideologues in London voting against the EU, and people in the provinces voting against London."
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
It's completely backwards. It was Crosland, the Labour Right and New Labour that all thought 'wealth creation' could be left to itself from 'now on' (whether from the 'now' standpoint of a 1960s mixed-market or a Thatcherite liberalism). Corbyn's wing has always been about questioning this idea - from devising and aligning themselves to the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' in the 1980s to the push for a more interventionist industrial strategy now.
I'm not sure that Corbyn & co. even think that prosperity is good thing. I think they believe that a poorer but more equal society would be a better place.
Tawney did say 'a society could never be too poor to have good economic relations, nor too rich to need them' or something like that. I can see Corbyn thinking that 'prosperity' isn't the same as what you might think it is - all the toys we want but more difficult to get a house or healthcare. But the idea that he or any one else in his circle might not think 'prosperity is a good thing' is just wrong.
But, would he or they regard private ownership of houses as being at all desirable.
Far too much discussion on Corbyn isn't linked to anything he's ever said. Tories talking to Tories about what they imagine Corbyn thinks based on what Mrs Thatcher used to say about socialism on the telly.
Thanks for the link, although the references to ending RTB, rent controls, and security of tenure, do rather confirm my suspicions.
It also talks a lot about 'homes that first-time buyers can afford', stopping 'soaring house prices' etc. Boosting council housing and home ownership are not mutually exclusive lines to follow, could well go hand-in-hand at the expense of private renting by lowering house prices.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
My God she's turning in to Vince Cable
Cable didn't call an election - TMay did and made it all about herself not even mentioning her party. That's a vanity project if ever there was one.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
6% interest in a world where no one, but no one, except Wonga is lending or borrowing at over 1.5% always struck me as particularly shitty.
Yep. I thought it was a thought-provoking piece. Corbyn Labour has rejected all that New Labour was about, including the importance of enabling sustainable wealth creation if you believe in redistributive and strong state. This is a real opportunity for the Tories IMO - not to hammer labour on the evils of socialism and Venezuela etc (that'll just be ignored), but to engage on really building an economy that delivers for everyone and how that is best done.
You are absolutely right, that is the opportunity for the Tories and the fact that Theresa May neglected that message was one of the reasons for her GE2017 disaster.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
GE2017 is like a bad dream I can't wake up from.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
The Tories still won 42% let us not forget, their highest total since 1992, a lot of voters still dislike Corbyn
As has been pointed out before the 42pc is a feature of an electorate which is more polarised than at any time since 1970. It is encouraging that the Tory vote has held up well since June's fiasco, but the party needs to break into Corbyn's coalition, which looks equally robust at present.
Just a 1 or 2% shift from Corbyn would be enough for a small Tory majority
Problem for Tories is TMay who has terrible leader ratings. She simply lost a lot of credibility with her vanity election. She called it and failed with her objective.
My God she's turning in to Vince Cable
Cable didn't call an election - TMay did and made it all about herself not even mentioning her party. That's a vanity project if ever there was one.
There is no vanity project bigger than Vince Cable
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
6% interest in a world where no one, but no one, except Wonga is lending or borrowing at over 1.5% always struck me as particularly shitty.
Very much so. Some parents are remortgaging their houses to pay off the student debts of their children as the rate of interest on the mortgage is lower than that on the student loan.
As it should be given the security charge. The government could choose to subsidise it, but the market rate for a student loan is higher than a mortgage
The problem is not university fees per se; all of my BNC mates would have got good value paying 9k a year for their degrees. The value of an unorthodox degree from the ex-Polys (especially Fen Poly ), especially given the proliferation of such degrees amongst their peers, however, might not be so worthwhile.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit almost uniformly and straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
We should reverse the tuition fee increases of 2012.
Loans aren't necessarily unreasonable, nor a fair tuition fee.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
Remind me how much you paid for your university education again?
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
6% interest in a world where no one, but no one, except Wonga is lending or borrowing at over 1.5% always struck me as particularly shitty.
OTOH, it wasn't very fair that pensioners with a bit too much in the way of savings were 'assumed' by the government to be receiving 10% interest when they were means-tested for various things. Does that still survive, or has the assumption been lowered (or dropped)? It's 10 years since my parent died.
The problem is not university fees per se; all of my BNC mates would have got good value paying 9k a year for their degrees. The value of an unorthodox degree from the ex-Polys (especially Fen Poly), especially given the proliferation of such degrees amongst their peers, however, might not be so worthwhile.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
remember when david willetts told us fees would be £6k on average
The problem is not university fees per se; all of my BNC mates would have got good value paying 9k a year for their degrees. The value of an unorthodox degree from the ex-Polys (especially Fen Poly), especially given the proliferation of such degrees amongst their peers, however, might not be so worthwhile.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
remember when david willetts told us fees would be £6k on average
I haven't listened to all of this yet but the French ambassador to the UK summed up the Brexit vote quite pithily: "You had some ideologues in London voting against the EU, and people in the provinces voting against London."
The problem is not university fees per se; all of my BNC mates would have got good value paying 9k a year for their degrees. The value of an unorthodox degree from the ex-Polys (especially Fen Poly), especially given the proliferation of such degrees amongst their peers, however, might not be so worthwhile.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
remember when david willetts told us fees would be £6k on average
wanker
"Two brains" Willets.
"Two hamster wheels for brains" more like.
His aim was to increase participation, I assume. Not to featherbed the world of higher education for producers.
The Aston Martin news "Aston Martin will buy more than £70 million in components from Japanese suppliers including Bridgestone, Denso, Mitsubishi and Yazaki." - looks like a major move away from EU suppliers.
The Conservatives need to ram home the economy message (which, notably, Theresa May failed abysmally to do in the recent election). It looks as though even the young Corbyn groupies realise that Labour are weak on that point.
I think that Yougov tend to oversample among very left wing 18-24 year olds.
Martin Boon / ICM comes to mind. Look what happened.
Ipsos MORI's How Britain Voted 2017 estimated a 62/27% lead for Labour among 18-24 year olds, which seems more plausible.
I was trying to think of a positive pitch that the Conservatives could make the other day to younger middle-class voters.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
Eliminating the interest on student loans would help. Also building houses and flats. Those two would be a start.
Maybe also increasing the amount which can be given away during life so that parents can help their children earlier in life and not just on death. Making it tax efficient for parents to give away part of their home to children while still living in part of it may also help.
The problem is not university fees per se; all of my BNC mates would have got good value paying 9k a year for their degrees. The value of an unorthodox degree from the ex-Polys (especially Fen Poly), especially given the proliferation of such degrees amongst their peers, however, might not be so worthwhile.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
remember when david willetts told us fees would be £6k on average
wanker
"Two brains" Willets.
"Two hamster wheels for brains" more like.
His aim was to increase participation, I assume. Not to featherbed the world of higher education for producers.
yeah right
the man is a totally brainless cnt
his worst performance was recently on radio where the hypocritical piece of crap sits on some think tank wondering why young people have less good prospect than 20 years ago and ignores his own actions
It looks as if more and more stuff is paid in arrears, presumably as a compromise between recipient countries who are happy to get more stuff paid for, albeit late, and donor countries like the UK who want to put off the evil hour. Legally, the situation is what a competent court decides it to be, but that depends on finding a mutually agreeable court willing to take on the case. And do we really want to suspend Brexit until they come to a judgment? Otherwise it's a negotiation. It's true the amounts are less objective than the EU pretend them to be, but us lclaiming that none of it is legally necessary doesn't cut it either. The EU put this in the initial things to be decided because they reckon that's their best chance of getting the clarity and the amounts they looking for. Maybe they are wrong about that, but in that case we are probably not serious about the Brexit negotiations in the context of us relying on their goodwill for a continued relationship and their being harmed by by our actions and not owing us any favours. If we walk away, at some point we will come back to them and the first thing they will mention is the exit fee. So they are probably correct to assume we will pay a somewhat haggled amount.
Oh, I agree.
But they need to start haggling, rather than pretending that there is some sort of obligation handed down on tablets of stone.
Comments
The whole point of Corbyn-era pressure for a proper industrial strategy is to say: we haven't 'solved the economic problem', we need to think about how we can rather than pretend it's the best of all possible worlds re: 'wealth creation' already.
I find inches of rain to be a much more intuitive metric than litres/hectare or whatever. An inch, for those interested, is 27,000 gallons, weighing 113 tons, per acre.
Incidentally, the End Times are on us; Nork is saying Guam's next, Trump is saying the days for talking are over. I am surprised at the lack of coverage of this.
Thank you for your earlier tip on the Granada TV series about the Spanish Civil War. I had never come across it before but I am going through it now and I fully agree with your comments on its excellence.
And what a beautiful voice Frank Finlay had. I'd never fully appreciated it from his other work.
https://twitter.com/andywigmore/status/902941548610035712
Tons: US or British? And Imperial gallons or US gallons?
IMHO it's largely the result of shedloads of good intentions over decades having horrifically unintended consequences that were never addressed.
Added to which, when we were just growing up, people about my age had it hammered into them that the state was going to look after them from the cradle to the grave.
It's a great pity that Mrs May's small attempts to redress the balance died still-born.
I guess today it'll be nothing to see, move on, children joshing.
And India got only £186 million.
By contrast, aid to the EU was £8.5 billion.
I am a late and rather reluctant convert to Obama's clumsily stated view to entrepreneurs that "You didn't build that". Sure, without risk takers, there will be little wealth creation. But quite aside from a business environment that is entrepreneur-friendly, entrepreneurs rely on a lot more help from both the state and other actors than they usually admit. And those who are successful probably owe more to dumb luck than they are likely to admit.
Whatever the facts, however, we need more and better entrepreneurs and we need to create a business environment where that is encouraged.
The impression I have about Corbyn is that he doesn't think that wealth creation is a problem: wealth droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven and therefore the only issue is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of it.
The fact that there is uncertainty about the costs and benefits of a course of action does not necessarily make it a wrong decision. In fact, in most truly complex decisions, I'd argue that cost benefit analyses - at least ones expressed in monetary terms - are nearly pointless.
My point with regards to Pakistan is that about the only foreseeable benefit of ending the funding is the money savings. Virtually all the other known and unknown consequences are negative.
He says that more money should be put into infrastructure and government services to cope with the increased population. This is completely the wrong answer. We need to make a choice between immigration and the welfare state and to me the answer is clear. We should welcome increased migration but at the same time massively cut the welfare state which is going to be untenable anyway sooner or later with or without further increases in population.
Anyone who wants to come here who has work or is independently self sufficient should be free to do so no matter where they come from as long as they understand they should have no access to public services and no receipt of welfare or benefits.
The only reason for refusing access should be security or criminal reasons.
In support of this, when net contributor countries (notably Austria) joined, they didn't get reduced contributions in the early years as a result of the fact that much of the spending was already lumped into the pre-accession reste à liquider of the existing member states. They can't have it both ways, can they?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-41093874
The tories don't care though. They don't see protecting the vulnerable as the state's responsibility. Unfettered capitalism is the solution to everything. Or something like that.
Even the tory client vote is getting sick of this sh*te.
Why can't a country that actually has a budget surplus give them aid? Merkel loves to signal how much of a humanitarian she is; perhaps she could use some of Germany's €23bn budget surplus.
I must confess, I struggled.
Homes are hugely expensive in London and the South East (admittedly not everywhere) and charging 6%+ interest on student loans seems unreasonable to me.
The real pitch must be on jobs, housing, strong wages, and getting the mood music right on Brexit and global Britain, because right now it's being painted as insular and retrograde by its enemies.
Right throughout I sensed there wasn't something quite right about it, in my gut, but I ignored it and looked for evidence of what I wanted to fit my preferred narrative.
International aid falls into broadly two categories:
- humanitarian, morally-given aid
- self-interested aid - an investment in one form of forward defence or another.
Regardless of budgetary status, the latter category makes sense. And, in relation to the former category, your comment raises the interesting question of whether the profligate should never be charitable, or rather whether the profligate have the right to impose all humanitarian costs upon those who are not.
In my view, most aid to Pakistan falls into the latter category.
Some complaints about older people are unjust, though. Working class people of my generation had to cope with high unemployment, and very few went to university. Working and middle class people of my parents' generation generally grew up in much grottier circumstances than today's 18-24 year olds did.
The Tories need a story for the future. Or they will blown out of office sky high and the backlash will sweep away all the hard work of the last 7+ years, and then some.
Admittedly this is more of a problem for the 30-45 age bracket, which is probably the crucial one.
You just have to be firm and say 'no', but not everyone feels comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do so.
It's the interest rates that are punitive.
'The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.'
I think the old family who owned Penrhyn Castle are perfect exemplars of how wealth creation has always worked, beneath this 'the market' myth. They made a fortune through the slave trade and owned plantations in Jamaica (after an early member of their family had been a captain in Cromwell's army which invaded Jamaica), and in politics were strong anti-abolitionists in the House of Lords. Through the enclosure of common lands in Wales and the displacement of peasant communities (which they also supported politically in the House of Lords) they converted their land into grazing land for sheep, helping to create a landless mass of wage-labourers. They re-invested the cash they had made in the slave-trade into slate mining, employing this displaced ex-peasantry and creating what was then the largest slate mining quarry in the world. They supported anti-trade union legislation in the House of Lords which helped them to break the strikes in their own businesses. They (well, their slaves, peasants, slate-miners and overseers mostly...) created a ton of wealth, but which is due to 'the market' and which is 'the state'?
IHT is a huge issue for the 40-50s in particular
That's where Corbyn (and his acolytes) get it wrong. Most of the young aren't socialist (at least no more so than the young have ever been) and do want consumer choice and to buy their own home. They are also highly individualistic (possibly more so than any other previous generation) and that comes across in personal identity and choice, and recognises very few traditional social structures like family, community, nations and religions as overriding, or having much of a part to play at all, in any of that.
But they've been promised it all on a plate, and Corbyn talks progressive idealistic language with mood music that chimes.
8.5 billion / 374 million = 22.7 times as much aid.
If anyone in the current Conservative parliamentary party said that it just wouldn't be credible and there wouldn't be any policy narrative to back it up, even if you set aside the inherently 'blood and soil' theme imposed by the referendum result.
We need to be a country with a future again, not just a country with a past.
It must be about making Corbyn and McDonnell look like yesterday's men by then.
The best thing to do is to get Boris in, call a 2019 or 2020 general election, play on a tax cut agenda, ease back a bit on austerity and commit to end free movement and big payments to the EU while Labour commits to keep free movement uncontrolled and large payments to the EU for years.
Far too much discussion on Corbyn isn't linked to anything he's ever said. Tories talking to Tories about what they imagine Corbyn thinks based on what Mrs Thatcher used to say about socialism on the telly.
My nieces will be paying £50k+ followed by interest at 6%+. That is neither reasonable nor fair.
I think what I paid (£3k per annum plus maintenance loan with interest = inflation) is fair.
But now that the internet shows the whole world the lifestyles of the wealthy, it seems to me to be spitting in the wind to hope that average people will be content with less than they might otherwise have.
Being content with 'enough' is not a highly thought of principle, if it ever has been. Our ideas of what is 'enough' tend to expand.
I thought it read like Alistair Meeks
I agree. Raising the fees and sticking up the interest rate is a real double-whammy.
Then young people have to buy an expensive house as well (actually, they can't afford one).
Really disappointed with the Tories over this one.
They also had the Tories on 38.5% under Davis, 36.7% under Hammond, 37% under Rudd and 38.9% under Boris. So only Boris took the Tories to a higher voteshare than May did. Yesterday ICM had the Tories on 42%, unchanged since the general election
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Final-MoS-Brexit-Poll-Tables-140717GOCH-1c0d2h4.pdf (pages 9 and 44-47)
The future middle class is going to be dominated by those lucky enough to receive £100k+ inheritances.
Which is the way the tory client vote want things to be.
https://twitter.com/patrickwintour/status/902591350062899201
he probably still thinks france is a great power
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/a-century-of-home-ownership-and-renting-in-england-and-wales/short-story-on-housing.html
That seems to show home-ownership growing faster during the council house boom and slowing under right-to-buy before declining.
The crime wasn't introducing fees or even raising them; it was the fact that universities pushed to the upper limit almost uniformly and straight away. HE has an awful lot to answer for.
wanker
"Two hamster wheels for brains" more like.
Maybe also increasing the amount which can be given away during life so that parents can help their children earlier in life and not just on death. Making it tax efficient for parents to give away part of their home to children while still living in part of it may also help.
the man is a totally brainless cnt
his worst performance was recently on radio where the hypocritical piece of crap sits on some think tank wondering why young people have less good prospect than 20 years ago and ignores his own actions
dog turd in a suit
NEW THREAD
But they need to start haggling, rather than pretending that there is some sort of obligation handed down on tablets of stone.