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The long term economic plan – politicalbetting.com

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  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556
    edited February 14

    Just today, Ukraine have hit a steel mill that produces 20% of Russia's steel...
    So what do you expect to happen. Russia to run out of steel?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,588

    Thanks. Much. Seeing a therapist too.
    You and I don't have much in common, infact we are normally at each other's throats, but keep your pecker up Casino!
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 5,173

    Trump's focus on VAT displays a jaw dropping level of economic illiteracy. VAT is designed to be completely non-disctiminatory between domestic production and imports. Either his team is completely ignorant or this is simply a smokescreen designed to justify punitive US tariffs under the guise of reciprocity.
    More likely than not the latter, but frankly who knows what's going on anymore?

    Reform cannot be trusted on either defence or national security. Both issues are going to balloon in importance over the coming years. Both Labour and the Tories should be hammering this point home.
    Nobody can be trusted on defence.

    Thought experiment: Rachel Reeves (or, for that matter, whoever might be Chancellor in a theoretical right-leaning Government) finds £10bn down the back of the Treasury sofa. Does it get spent on (a) the army, (b) the navy, or (c) bungs for middle class pensioners, to be spaffed away on Saga cruises and luxury dog food?

    If Putin gets tempted to conquer the Baltic States then he will get them. This country won't be serious about defence until the Russian army has reached the Rhine, and Britain and France have no cards to play other than to threaten a nuclear holocaust in which absolutely everyone dies horribly. Trident, assuming it has been maintained in working order, is all we have left.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,484
    HYUFD said:

    So in some respects Trump is a Dukakis liberal Democrat, not even a centrist Democrat on trade
    I missed the bit where Dukakis threatened Canada, Mexico and wanted to impose trade tarrifs on every other country.
  • It isn't really true, The leave voting block was predominantly retired and thus generally home owning and less credentialed. The 'poor' by whatever metrics were much more likely to not vote.

    https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/EUFinalCall_Reweighted.pdf

    The most distinctive split in the last few elections is between the working age groups and those who are older. If we excluded the over 65s IMO Labour would have won every election since 2017. I will agree that Reform are now muddying the waters but I do not believe Nigel will sway even a plurality of the working age groups.
    Farage is gaining votes across the board at present
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,928
    EPG said:

    He's ordering Europe to let neo-Nazis into government, so of course you'd like him.
    Eia eia alala!

    Many thanks to @Theuniondivvie for suggesting Sky Atlantic’s Mussolini. Unusual but good. And timely
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,743
    edited February 14
    HYUFD said:

    Not that working age groups alone are decisive anyway, the median UK voter is now 50 not 30
    I agree, the country is ageing and there is a conservative bias in the demographics. But with natural attrition and the seemingly fixed voting patterns of even younger cohorts the larger 'millennial' voting block will come to dominate in the next decade. You could say that the first real political loss of the 'boomer' generation was 2024.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,318
    Leon said:

    Because you libs have basically destroyed our countries we are left with no choice
    That sounds like something a dictator would say. Just saying.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,111
    TOPPING said:

    So what do you expect to happen. Russia to run out of steel?
    If you hit enough productive capacity then sooner or later it will not have something critical that it needs, when it needs it.

    Russia's advances in the east have slowed to a snail's pace, at horrendous cost. Very much WWI figures. Remember how that ended for the Russian regime. They didn't lose because the Germans occupied Petrograd; they lost because civil society and the army broke.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,321

    DId he hit his head on a low beam?
    Easily done, VP or no VP.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,588
    edited February 14
    HYUFD said:

    Bill Clinton and Gore backed NAFTA not tariff wars and were more open to immigration than Trump too and backed a 2 state solution in the Middle East and NATO
    Good "community note" there HY.

    Bullshit needs to be called out.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556
    Leon said:

    Eia eia alala!

    Many thanks to @Theuniondivvie for suggesting Sky Atlantic’s Mussolini. Unusual but good. And timely
    Speaking of which, I had occasion yesterday to read the Speccie from cover to cover. I mean I can't argue with the circulation stats or perhaps even the readership demographic but god it was turgid and nothing seems to have changed since years ago. The same bitter, I miss the 1950s when people knew their place article by Charles Moore at the front, a why oh why from the otherwise excellent Douglas Murray, and in general still a retail offer to retired colonels and parish councillors.

    I didn't get the young, bright, snappy, relevant element that is bringing droves of young people to the mag.
  • The most anti-democratic current of thought in the West at the moment is the idea that the winner of an election should be prevented from implementing his policies and it's not Trump who is promoting it.

    "At the moment" noted. So, when was it mainstream for election winners to do whatever they wanted even if it was against the law?

  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,924
    Didn't hear anything in Vance's speech I disagreed with.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,321
    TOPPING said:

    Speaking of which, I had occasion yesterday to read the Speccie from cover to cover. I mean I can't argue with the circulation stats or perhaps even the readership demographic but god it was turgid and nothing seems to have changed since years ago. The same bitter, I miss the 1950s when people knew their place article by Charles Moore at the front, a why oh why from the otherwise excellent Douglas Murray, and in general still a retail offer to retired colonels and parish councillors.

    I didn't get the young, bright, snappy, relevant element that is bringing droves of young people to the mag.
    What was the occasion? A gun to your head?
  • NEW THREAD

  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,177

    Good "community note" there HY.

    Bullshit needs to be called out.
    It’s not bullshit. Clinton got NAFTA through with Republican votes. The majority of Democrats opposed it. Free trade becoming an article of faith for the left illustrates the way in which they have become detached from working class interests.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,588
    TOPPING said:

    Speaking of which, I had occasion yesterday to read the Speccie from cover to cover. I mean I can't argue with the circulation stats or perhaps even the readership demographic but god it was turgid and nothing seems to have changed since years ago. The same bitter, I miss the 1950s when people knew their place article by Charles Moore at the front, a why oh why from the otherwise excellent Douglas Murray, and in general still a retail offer to retired colonels and parish councillors.

    I didn't get the young, bright, snappy, relevant element that is bringing droves of young people to the mag.
    Don't act so surprised. We get the free edition on here, and it's all about the Groucho Club and pictures of far flung breakfasts.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,928
    kinabalu said:

    I guess if I'd worked harder at school I could by now have been an ageing hack with a flat in Camden. But there's no point in regrets.
    No, I don’t think so. I think you worked as hard as you could - and ended up what you are - a closeted gay retired golf playing accountant. Some may sneer at that, but not me. You did the very best you could with the very average hand you were dealt

  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    Just today, Ukraine have hit a steel mill that produces 20% of Russia's steel...
    As Topping says so what

    They have lost and will be giving up land

    They will be repaying America via mineral rights.

    Its like Hitler claiming a triumph as he has a new heating system in his bunker in 1945

    As one of the chief "Ukraine is going to win this" posters for the last 3 years.

    It comes over as pathetic on the eve of defeat.

    Zelensky will be fine mind
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,780

    No, that was before Clinton transformed the Democrats into a party of corporate interests...
    I'm pretty sure Trump is the party of corporate interests, provided the bodies corporate are i) oligarchs or ii) himself

  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,686
    kjh said:

    That sounds like something a dictator would say. Just saying.
    It's the sort of populist hyperbole beloved of those with limited intellect. Oh sorry @Leon and you with the very high IQ that you were boasting about earlier. By the way, people that boast of high IQ are normally always those who are terrified of taking the test and would struggle to win at noughts and crosses even if they went first!
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,204
    Did the Guardian intend that double "stunned" meaning? (Whether or not they did, it's still funny.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,928
    edited February 14
    TOPPING said:

    Speaking of which, I had occasion yesterday to read the Speccie from cover to cover. I mean I can't argue with the circulation stats or perhaps even the readership demographic but god it was turgid and nothing seems to have changed since years ago. The same bitter, I miss the 1950s when people knew their place article by Charles Moore at the front, a why oh why from the otherwise excellent Douglas Murray, and in general still a retail offer to retired colonels and parish councillors.

    I didn't get the young, bright, snappy, relevant element that is bringing droves of young people to the mag.
    You need to read the online edition. Or listen to the podcasts. Or watch spectator tv. Or check its other digital offerings

    The actual magazine is aimed specifically at the older and ageing readership that still reads paper magazines
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,686

    No, that was before Clinton transformed the Democrats into a party of corporate interests.

    Compare with Dukakis' anti-free trade rhetoric:

    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-03-19-mn-1306-story.html

    More Democrats voted against NAFTA than for it in both the Senate and House.
    Surely people are allowed to change their minds? I am sure there was someone on here who rather bizarrely went from EU federalist to frothing swivel-eyed Brexiteer when the wind changed one day. Can't remember who that was though, can you?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,928

    Did the Guardian intend that double "stunned" meaning? (Whether or not they did, it's still funny.)

    No no no. It’s me mis-transcribing as I’m simultaneously writing emails, watching “Mussolini”, reading the news and posting on here
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,686

    As Topping says so what

    They have lost and will be giving up land

    They will be repaying America via mineral rights.

    Its like Hitler claiming a triumph as he has a new heating system in his bunker in 1945

    As one of the chief "Ukraine is going to win this" posters for the last 3 years.

    It comes over as pathetic on the eve of defeat.

    Zelensky will be fine mind
    No doubt as a fan of Mr Thicky Corbyn you feel that the Ukrainians should just roll over. The reality is that the Russian war machine has proven itself to have erectile dysfunction. It has been given a very good kicking by a military power that is tiny by comparison. Putin Fans Please Explain.

    Slava Ukraini and fuck the Putin Appeasers.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,686
    Tice is a twat, but it really is largely irrelevant at the moment. He is not the CoE.

    RACHEL REEVES SHOULD RESIGN
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,979
    Leon said:

    Eia eia alala!

    Many thanks to @Theuniondivvie for suggesting Sky Atlantic’s Mussolini. Unusual but good. And timely
    Thought it would appeal. The samurai in full fig was a startling touch, though presumably historically accurate.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,080

    Thanks. Certainly we cannot blame the public for being promiscuous when our politicians are flipping from party to party, sometimes for pure opportunism.

    There's a reason people like Anna Soubry (Con-SDP-Con-Ind Grp-Change-Lab) or Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Con-Lab-SNP-Alba) aren't taken seriously.

    The 'unique volatility' I would largely put at the door of politicians moving parties at a rate we haven't really experienced for a long time.
    It is that unique? What of Roy Jenkins (Lab-SDP-LibDem) or Stratton Mills (UUP-Con-APNI) or Enoch Powell (Con-UUP) or Winston Churchill (Con-Lib-ind-Con) or Oswald Mosley (Conservative-Independent-Labour-New Party-Union Movement-National Party of Europe) or Dick Taverne (Lab-Democratic Labour-SDP-LibDem) or Jim Sillars (Lab-Scottish Labour Party-SNP)?
  • Tice is a twat, but it really is largely irrelevant at the moment. He is not the CoE.

    RACHEL REEVES SHOULD RESIGN
    She and her boss must be the first chancellor and Prime Minister who have seriously attempted to repeal the basic laws / rules of mathematics.

    I am at a loss to decide which is the more absurd,

    1) a Budget based upon the premise that such a thing is possible

    2) "Independent" Civil Servants who allowed a budget in which the basic laws of Maths were apparently negotiable

    3) A press and BBC which has gone along with that absurdity for seven months

    or

    4) Someone suddenly deciding having a lunatic Chancellor and disnumerate PM might not be a "good thing" and suddenly obsessing about matters which are serious but no more serious than they were last August when they first came to light

    I do wonder how many farmers Starmer has to bankrupt to pay for his policies so far.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,767
    edited February 14
    Andy_JS said:

    Didn't hear anything in Vance's speech I disagreed with.

    Do you agree with all the fabrications?

    (For example his claim that the 'Safe Zones' law around abortion clinics criminalises silent prayer in your own home - it does not.

    Or his claim that Adam Smith-Connor was arrested for "praying silently for 3 minutes" outside a clinic. Actually he had refused to leave the area when required to do so by police for more than one and a half hours under the PSPO.

    Or his claim that the Romanian election was cancelled by the Constitutional Court on the basis of weak evidence and a bit of social media advertising?)

    This is the same problem as Trump when he pretends that the USA has supported Ukraine to the tune of $350bn vs Europe $50bn in a press conference, he is telling himself nonsense that could have come from a TikTok influencer / Telegraph ( eg the 'silent prayer in your own home' one), the Daily Express or GB News - then acting as if the made up account is true.

    He is taking minor, made up or non-existent points and launching into tirades of baseless rhetoric.

    I often think that this is because our UK media routinely deals in sensationalism and outright fiction to sex up stories, but given Vance's record, and the Trump regime's actions, I think it likely he knows exactly what he is doing.

    The one point I found interesting was his assertion that Europe needs to work out what they are defending FOR - ie a positive vision. He is right on that.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,767
    Leon said:

    No no no. It’s me mis-transcribing as I’m simultaneously writing emails, watching “Mussolini”, reading the news and posting on here
    For a minute I thought you had a job on Camden TV as a newsreader.

    That WOULD be interesting :smile: .
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    Tice is a twat, but it really is largely irrelevant at the moment. He is not the CoE.

    RACHEL REEVES SHOULD RESIGN
    I see Streeting is being super supportive.

    He knows he is next in line if she goes

    https://x.com/PeterTa06662925/status/1850797388182458464
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    No doubt as a fan of Mr Thicky Corbyn you feel that the Ukrainians should just roll over. The reality is that the Russian war machine has proven itself to have erectile dysfunction. It has been given a very good kicking by a military power that is tiny by comparison. Putin Fans Please Explain.

    Slava Ukraini and fuck the Putin Appeasers.
    Go and lick your wounds for the next few months mate you lost.

    Who needs Corbyn when you have the POTUS with Corbynite foreign Policies for the next 4 years.

    To me Trump will have immediate NATO membership for Ukraine if Putin tries any further expansion but Centrist thickies wont have thought of that.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    Reeve says nobody raised concerns about her expenses when at HBoS

    As there was an investigation somebody clearly did

    She is silent on fake dentist appointments
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 564
    Andy_JS said:

    Didn't hear anything in Vance's speech I disagreed with.

    It's been mentioned before that Europe has to sort its own sh*t out. The Elves Usonians are sailing back to their own promised* land.

    *Alternative views of the promise are available.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,922
    Nigelb said:

    Or effectively, a liability of £250k per person.
    Sure if my 50 years of NI was in a private pension it would hav ebeen far more substantial and covered private health as well.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,922

    We treat age as far too decisive, since it varies so much between individuals. This gloomy thread partly overlooks the improvements in health over time, to the point that the average 65-year-old is perfectly capable of working longer. I got another job without too much trouble after losing my seat at age 60, and have only just more or less definitely retired at 75. Certainly maintaining pensions at 65 (or even younger) makes little sense in general - rather, we should encourage people to look at their own individual conditions, with an incentive to carry on working to age 70 or so if there's little physical reason not to.
    Tell that to a manual worker liek steel erector, brickie, joiner etc, they are knackered well before existing pension age. Not everybody has cushy jobs in Westminster feasting on subsidesed meals and champagne with a few hours at a desk thrown in.
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