THE FOURTH OF JULY

[Jacob]

My feeling is that the Green party will win a seat in Derbyshire by just one vote which, combined with online anti-Starmer canvassing (especially on a well-known woodworking site), will lead overall to a tory win by just one seat.

And a resignation from Starmer, one would hope!

 

[selectortone]

My feeling is that the Green party will win a seat in Derbyshire by just one vote which, combined with online anti-Starmer canvassing (especially on a well-known woodworking site), will lead overall to a tory win by just one seat.

Brilliant!

 

[selectortone]

Let's get this thread back on topic please.

I despise the Tories. The likes of Michelle Mone who enriched herself with millions paid for faulty PPE and then denied it, tax avoiders like Nadhim Zahawi who "made a careless mistake" and avoided paying £4.8m tax, heartless monsters like Suella Braverman denying her immigrant roots, nutters like Liz Truss who crashed the economy, put mortgages through the roof and ruined countless thousands of families, entitled, out-of-touch eton prefects like Jacob Rees-Mogg, bizarre aliens like Michael Gove, and all the awful, incompetent, useless rest of them.

I really don't care who wins, or what combination of government we get, just as long as we see the back of them. My children and granchildren deserve better.

 

[John Brown]

I despise the Tories. The likes of Michelle Mone who enriched herself with millions paid for faulty PPE and then denied it, tax avoiders like Nadhim Zahawi who "made a careless mistake" and avoided paying £4.8m tax, heartless monsters like Suella Braverman denying her immigrant roots, nutters like Liz Truss who crashed the economy, put mortgages through the roof and ruined countless thousands of families, entitled, out-of-touch eton prefects like Jacob Rees-Mogg, bizarre aliens like Michael Gove, and all the awful, incompetent, useless rest of them.

I really don't care who wins, or what combination of government we get, just as long as we see the back of them. My children and granchildren deserve better.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Chris152]

And a resignation from Starmer, one would hope!

Which would likely lead to another term of the conservatives, pushing public consciousness even further to the right and making it necessary for Labour to move further right if it's to have any chance of winning enough votes in the following GE.

 

[Jacob]

Which would likely lead to another term of the conservatives,

Which is what we would get after a failed Starmer period in office.

pushing public consciousness even further to the right and making it necessary for Labour to move further right if it's to have any chance of winning enough votes in the following GE.

Or to the left? There could be a massive reassessment by the electorate, as there was in 1997 and 2017

 

[selectortone]

and 2017

And a fat lot of good that did.

 

[Spectric]

Ok so we know what we don't want, dislike or feel strongly about so lets take an opposite view, you have been given the keys to number 10 and are now the leader of the UK so what would your first three objectives be and why ?

 

[John Brown]

Ok so we know what we don't want, dislike or feel strongly about so lets take an opposite view, you have been given the keys to number 10 and are now the leader of the UK so what would your first three objectives be and why ?

I think I'd hand the keys back straight away. The country is screwed. I do like the idea of GB power, or whatever the proposed name is. It's a suggestion I made a while back - since it seems that any Tom, Dick or Harriet can sell electrity and gas, set up a state owned company in competition with the existing ones. No need to nationalize the whole sector, if it works out cheaper, customers will switch. If it doesn't work, I have a supply of edible headwear.

 

[Yojevol]

I've just finished reading 'Aftremath', the story of immediate post war Germany. The final quote is by Karl Jaspers who was reflecting on the dialogue of the German people in those years. I thought it was worth repeating here:-

Let us learn to talk to one another. That is, let us not merely repeat our opinion, but hear what the other person thinks. Let us not only assert, but reflect in context, listen for reasons, remain prepared to reach a new insight. Let us inwardly attempt to assume the position of the other. Yes, let us actually seek out that which contradicts us. Grasping what we hold in common within contradiction is more important than hastily fixing exclusive standpoints with which the conversation draws hopelessly to an end.

Brian

 

[RobinBHM]

On the face of it Labour will get a majority. But it depends on turnout, which can completely change the picture.
I'd bet on Labour but with smaller majority than predicted.
You can see your own constituency here:
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_home.html

the numbers seem mad to me

its Multi-level Regression and Poststratification

Labour 485 seats
Conservatives 66 seats

It would change the political landscape if Lib dems became the official opposition

But I still think Labour will struggle to win a majority, theres a rumour going around it all hinges on one seat in Derbyshire

 

[niemeyjt]

Ok so we know what we don't want, dislike or feel strongly about so lets take an opposite view, you have been given the keys to number 10 and are now the leader of the UK so what would your first three objectives be and why ?

I believe that there is no situation a politician cannot make worse - so I would look to undo messes created by dogmatic politicians of all colours - sadly something they ought to have put their hands up to and said "we messed up" - but none have the guts to.

Some of the candidates for repeal:
VAT/tourist tax from Hunt;
IR35 - get more freelancers working again for a flexible jobs market from Brown
Blair's dental contract that drove so many away from NHS
Various anti-landlord measures introduced mostly by Osborne and Sunak but some others - to get more private landlords back to the market
PFI - started by Major and abused by Prescott and Brown
Water - just fine the companies for every pollution incident - they will either clean up their act or go bust and shareholders get wiped out
Telecoms - ban these RPI + 3% increases - put everything on a CPI/RPI level footing.

And on day two . . .

 

[RobinBHM]

I think I'd hand the keys back straight away. The country is screwed. I do like the idea of GB power, or whatever the proposed name is. It's a suggestion I made a while back - since it seems that any Tom, Dick or Harriet can sell electrity and gas, set up a state owned company in competition with the existing ones. No need to nationalize the whole sector, if it works out cheaper, customers will switch. If it doesn't work, I have a supply of edible headwear.

GB power would be a producer not a supplier so we woldnt be able to buy from them as a customer

but the privatised energy suppliers would be able to buy from them

I think its a clever idea since nationalising the suppliers would shield customers from global wholesale prices anyway -Jeremy Corbyns renationalisation would not have prevented the energy crisis

we need to end reliance on Shell and BP and the global oil prices

 

[RobinBHM]

And on day two . . .

free real ale for over 50s

 

[selectortone]

Ok so we know what we don't want, dislike or feel strongly about so lets take an opposite view, you have been given the keys to number 10 and are now the leader of the UK so what would your first three objectives be and why ?

Reintroduce capital punishment
Introduce the guillotine rather than the gallows
Chop off some heads (see my list above - post #443)

I don't agree with the French much, but they got some things right.



OK, OK..... that might be taking it a bit too far...

 

[Jacob]

Basically emergency action now, for quick results:
1 Action on housing -
tie up the rental sector, no no-fault evictions, security for tenants, minimum standards, rent controls, repair/maintenance obligations with strong sanctions
tax second homes, control/regulate them and make them available where there is housing need
end leaseholds and other exploitative measures
big increase in capital gains tax and inheritance tax etc
2 UBI for basic security for all
3 Big spend on NHS and other care/welfare services
4 Put country on something like a war footing to combat climate change
After that to start reviewing what else needs doing - more "council house" building obviously, but to end the distinction between "social/council" housing and the rest - it all should be seen as "social" housing

 

[Jake]

But I still think Labour will struggle to win a majority, theres a rumour going around it all hinges on one seat in Derbyshire

ROFL

 

[Terry - Somerset]

GB power would be a producer not a supplier so we woldnt be able to buy from them as a customer

but the privatised energy suppliers would be able to buy from them

I think its a clever idea since nationalising the suppliers would shield customers from global wholesale prices anyway -Jeremy Corbyns renationalisation would not have prevented the energy crisis

we need to end reliance on Shell and BP and the global oil prices

UK consumers were insulated from the worst of the energy price increases through price caps and subsidy. It did not need a state owned producer.

GB Power would not be immune from international oil and gas price rises - there would merely be the potential for a lack of transparency for any losses incurred.

Stable energy prices require a reduction in reliance on global markets. This will only happen if barriers and delays to solar, wind and nuclear installations are dismantled.

This needs regulatory, legislative and planning changes. Whether a state owned GB Energy or the private sector will deliver more quickly and at lower costs is another debate.

 

[Yorkieguy]

Yes like all those who inherit wealth - every single beneficiary of the lavish private sector in education for instance

Like left wing MP Diane Abbot's son, for example.

Ms Abbott, then MP for Hackney North, was widely condemned for entering James for the £13,000-a-year City of London School. She admitted her decision was ‘indefensible’. She'd previously condemned Tony Blair, and Harriet Harman, then the solicitor general, for not sending their children to traditional state schools. She allegedly said of Ms Harman's decision to send her son to a grammar school: (not a Private school), "She made the party look as if we do one thing and say another."

So here was someone who purports to be a staunch socialist, who for two decades had railed against privilege. Here was a conviction politician from the Left who’d attacked senior Labour figures for putting their kids in selective schools, going one step further, putting her son in a far more exclusive school and buying him even better life-chances.

She made the racist comment: ‘White people love playing divide and rule. We should not play their game,’ and referring to ‘tactics as old as colonialism’. (Errm? Run that past me again please).

Professor Tim Brighouse, the London schools commissioner, interviewed in the Local Government Chronicle, said it was wrong to believe that the capital's comprehensive schools were worse than those in other parts of England. Exam statistics showed that the opposite was true. Even those serving the poorest communities in London outperformed those in other parts of the country, he said.

Prof Brighouse said that cross-referencing GCSE results with the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals - the standard poverty yardstick - showed that London schools did better than those elsewhere. It was "extremely sad" when people opted to go private, he added. "My experience in putting my children through urban schools is that they achieve in a vivid and rich environment that is determinedly improving its performance."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/01/uk.schools

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/diane-abbott-i-sent-my-son-to-private-230293

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...th-delivered-1-2million-home-court-hears.html

After GCEs, when aged 20, James Abbott, was sent to study in the sixth form of the £6,000-a-year SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College in Tema, Ghana, which boasts facilities such as a ‘near-Olympic-sized pool’ and declares that its students ‘graduate with an internationally recognised baccalaureate and are then able to study at almost any university in the world’.

Lo and behold, like his mother, he went to Cambridge, and enjoyed a meteoric rise within the Foreign Office, after joining Diplomatic Fast Stream in 2014.

But sadly it didn’t end well. Maybe he mixed with the wrong crowd?

Aged 28, in late 1999, and July 2 2020 when he is accused of carrying out three attacks including two on emergency workers outside Homerton Hospital and elsewhere in Hackney where his mother lives. He was charged with 11 new offences including 9 assaults - most on police and medics. He also faces count of exposure in hospital and racially/religiously aggravated criminal damage

He had crystal meth delivered to her home when she was Shadow Home Secretary. He was said to have chased her around her £1.2million home with scissors, claiming he had a gun in his dressing gown pocket. James Abbott-Thompson was high on a cocktail of drugs when he started ‘threatening his mother with violence’. He then went on a drug-induced rampage, attacking nine police officers, doctors, nurses and security guards at various hospitals. It emerged the ‘rising star’ had been hooked on drugs even before he joined the Foreign Office fast-track scheme in 2014.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...th-delivered-1-2million-home-court-hears.html

As a parent of two adult sons, she has my deepest sympathy. She did what she thought was best for her son, gave him what she thought was a head-start in life, and she must be bereft at the outcome. I wish her well in her bid to be elected as MP at the General Election by those Labour voters who don't mind at all that she sent her kid to a private school, and then to do the baccalaureate at an exclusive private school in Ghana.

 

[selectortone]

Whether a state owned GB Energy or the private sector will deliver more quickly and at lower costs is another debate

What it wouldn't do is funnel profits to overseas shareholders (cf. water companies)