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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn’s big speech – David Herdson’s take
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn’s big speech – David Herdson’s take
2/n There were *a lot* of very expensive pledges in his speech:– Free university tuition– Renationalisation of key industries– "Ending austerity" i.e. major increases in day-to-day spending
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Both parties now actively electioneering. Both leaders actively avoiding the scrutiny of an interview, and appealing to their populist base. What a shitfest we are in for.
PS If Malc is around, I got the Woodford Reserve and am enjoying it very much. Very good value, if not as good a proper single malt!
I have little sympathy for him. Ince he decided it was o.k to throw milkshakes at people he didn't like he should of expected worse coming back to him from the other side.
Too bad, so sad.
Vote Leave explicitly denied that triggering Article 50 was required, see here:
http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal.html
"We do not necessarily have to use Article 50 - we may agree with the EU another path that is in both our interests."
RE: Herdson's point 5-
Corbyn stated he wanted a second referendum (for the first time?) with two plausible options, one of which would be remain.
It sounds as though he basically repeated the 2017 manifesto on a sort of 'what the hell - it worked last time' basis. But his sums didn't even begin to make sense then and make less sense now. For example, how is he going to put more money into lifelong learning and technical education as pledged a fortnight ago if the whole education budget is swamped by free university tuition?
Is that right?
Mine's easy to see. It's on top of all those papers I keep not getting round to filing.
Surely not a violent (!) mugging.
Something like letting his bike tyres down would have been more appropriate.
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1163395649909514240
I believe the current No Deal viewpoints conjugate around this question. For those who don't see No Deal being an issue the Operation Yellowhammer issues are self contained so can be fixed.
Personally, No Deal is likely to be set of disasters that build upon one another - issue a and issue b combine to make issues c and d far far worse than they would otherwise have been.
On my list of British people who have done some of the most harm in the last 20 years will be one (ex) Dr Andrew Wakefield.
In a sane world he would be shunned and having to pick up litter with his bare hands to earn a living not being feted and fawned over by super-models and credulous and/or worried parents.
In it, she makes the case that modern parenting's relentless positivity and reinforcement of "you can do anything!" is messing our children up. Giving kids the idea that they can become NASA scientists, when their maths aren't good enough for them to become Accountants, isn't helping them, it's giving them unrealistic expectations and setting them up to be disappointed later.
With that in mind, here's my brief forecast for the next four years.
No Deal happens, and catastrophe does not.
Boris Johnson calls a General Election, which he wins reasonably well thanks to a split opposition, and optimism. (Say a 50-60 seat majority.)
The world enters recession, a consequence of the natural stage of the economic cycle we are in, and the Trump trade wars. Britain does not sign an FTA with the US, because it turns out that British and American farmers do not share a common vision.
Our exports splutter (mostly due to the world economy, but excarbated by No Deal Brexit), and - thanks to already overstretched consumers and close to zero interest rates - there is much less room to get people spending than previously. UK house prices fall, thanks to lack of demand from immigrating foreigners and rising unemployment at home.
The UK enters a nasty three year recession, which is not as deep as 2007/2008, but is longer due to our lack of policy responses. (Mortgage rates can't go negative.)
Talks with the EU resume, but they demand that we agree to the billions in the Withdrawal Agreement and to something equivalent to the Backstop in Northern Ireland. The Conservative Party can't accept this.
The British people see all the problems with the British economy as due to Brexit (they're not), but most people aren't very good at complex cause and effect. The country gets ever more polarised, between those affected by the ongoing recession, and those for whom sovereignty is more important.
British voters split three ways: the socialist Labour Party, telling all that the ills of the economy are the result of nasty capitalists and capitalism; the patriotic Conservative Party who tells people that Paradise is just Postponed; and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who promise that everything will just be alright if we rejoin.
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson_MP/status/1155808844024602624?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1155808844024602624&ref_url=https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/07/30/this-clip-of-boris-johnson-talking-about-the-single-market-hasnt-aged-well/
But two wrongs don't make a right. The people that attacked him - irresepective of the reasons for the attack - need to be caught and punished.
“Can they explain, simply, what "[We'll] give the workforce a 10% stake in large companies; paying a dividend of as much as £500 a year to each employee" means in practice?”
has been analysed before. Wasn’t the conclusion that in fact the government would be taking the majority of the stake for itself because the 10% share would not be owned by the employees individually and they would only be getting a proportion of the dividends. In short a proposal dressed up as giving something to employees is in fact a proposal which will take from them and the companies they work for.
Irony meter broke there and then.
- Free university tuition
- Renationalisation of key industries
- "Ending austerity" i.e. major increases in day-to-day spending
How will this all be paid for?
Answer: It'll be paid from the same magic money tree that Johnson is funding his pledges from.
Plus there's the 'Brexit dividend'.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/bankers-stunned-as-negative-rates-sweep-across-danish-mortgages
Has it ever apologised?
The original piece linked stated that he changed at the suggestion of a Doctor:
"He began rationing his pricey prescription, before a doctor recommended taking ReliOn, an over-the-counter brand sold for $25 a vial at Walmart."
Very much agree with the comments on diabetes costs in USA. Syringes seem very expensive. too.
Dr Fox is right on the costs.
The insulin cost in the US is a number of times that paid by the Local Doctor here, based on the BNF numbers for the same product. Very rough estimate based on the last time I looked it up would be 5x plus more expensive in USA. Even the cheaper one is getting on for 2-3 times. Syringes are not dissimilar - I could buy them of Amazon at about a fifth of the price quoted (15p vs 1 dollar), should I not use a prescription.
I am just about to start picking up the tab for daily part time professional care for a parent, and it is a similar type of number.
I doubt it's even all that popular, it's not clear what it means really.
As for his Brexit policy, it remains as convoluted and irrational as ever. Apparently he'll do anything to stop a no-deal Brexit, except whip his MPs to vote in the one way which would unquestionably have avoided one, natch.
Assuming he said what the Press Office released, he actually said
And if there is a general election this autumn, Labour will commit to holding a public vote, to give voters the final say with credible options for both sides including the option to remain
That doesn't imply necessarily only two options. I accept that he might have clarified it in the Q&A, which I've not seen - though I'll predict blind that he didn't.
What he didn't say was
- How long he'd take to renegotiate
- What side Labour would back (if any) in an EURef2
- What 'credible options' means
- What happens if Exit Day occurs first
The link is here;
https://labour.org.uk/press/jeremy-corbyn-speech-corby-today/
I think they're negative - as previously stated they were talking about it on the World Service last night , where they warned that Asset prices could drop being your worry
I think the correct course of action now is to probably vote Lib Dem despite their unwillingness to compromise over Brexit as its heading towards No Deal, Corbyn or "No Brexit".
Much as it grates to go against a 17.6 million vote only 3 years ago, given where we are now the Lib Dem vote looks the most sensible to me. I'd have preferred the WA to be passed, but it looks dead right now... as someone once said I wouldn't have started from here.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1163462105225474048
The Tories have borrowed more than all Labour governments put together but they got the massive "interest dividend" thank to QE in the last 9 years.
The interest charge the UK government [ indeed all governments ] pay today is nothing compared to the previous decade even though debt is now over 85% of GDP when it was less than Germany's as a % of GDP in 2010.
We have asked all our employees to read this carefully.
It is beyond belief.
* Well, they say 'new' but I have a vague sense I've seen this one before.
1) Politicians may be more willing to compromise knowing another election is 5 years away
2) Some of the party leaders (including Corbyn) will likely move on allowing for fresh thinking
3) Some of the older MPs will have been replaced by younger MPs more willing to toe the party line.
https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/1163464775382081536
Of course, born-again sensible bank manager John McDonnell may overrule him.
the 2010 Government inherited a collosal deficit, should it just have stopped paying benefits, for the NHS etc etc
The Government from 2010 to now has managed to massively reduce the deficit whilst maintaining and then massively increasing employment.
It has been an amazing success in that regard
Ideally we wouldn’t have referendums in the first place. They do not work with our Parliamentary system and allow demagogues to pretend that complex problems have simple solutions. Or they become a protest vote on a completely different issue.
Anything wrong with that?
But I fear you may be right. It's that long since Britain's had proper inflation that the threat of its return may well be wished away as scaremongering or at the least, downplayed far too far.
good as a single malt and a nice change now and again.
We are borrowing to pay debt interest.
What happened to 'mend the roof when the sun is shining'?
Besides, there is a deal.
I think it was a fluke. I think it was drafted with the expectation that Labour was about to not just be defeated but possibly knocked from the position it held in British politics as the only opponent to the Conservatives who could realistically beat them. As such it was pretty much a genuine statement of the party's aims rather than an attempt to put together a winning coalition.
So I don't think the 2019 manifesto will have the impact of the 2019 one. Unless I'm wrong, and there is some political genius at work in the Labour Party office somewhere. Which isn't impossible.
So I can see that it might just happen that Labour wins an overall majority.
I don't think I was posting here at all at the time of the referendum.