[Politics] *** Labour Party Annual Conference, 23-25 September 2018, ACC Liverpool ***

[portslade seagull]

Interestingly I read a couple of days ago that the Conservatives have outborrowed Labour relatively speaking in their terms in Government over the last 60 years...

Mostly trying to recover from Labour governments.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Interestingly I read a couple of days ago that the Conservatives have outborrowed Labour relatively speaking in their terms in Government over the last 60 years...

And that is even after keeping their borrowing 'down' by selling off every single thing the nation owned, from railways, to industries, phone companies, and every last council house.

 

[Chicken Run]

And that is even after keeping their borrowing 'down' by selling off every single thing the nation owned, from railways, to industries, phone companies, and every last council house.

Don’t forget the gold, oh wait a moment.....

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Mostly trying to recover from Labour governments.

Well, potentially. That was my thought - the only data I found didn't support this though. Maybe it's a common misconception.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Don’t forget the gold, oh wait a moment.....

Fair point, though not remotely comparable in scale.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Well, potentially. That was my thought - the only data I found didn't support this though. Maybe it's a common misconception.

It's all public money so quite easy to find the breakdowns. Last year figures show the goverment borrowed £40 billion odd pounds to pay for all the shortfall in outgoings.

All governments need to borrow to pay for stuff and keep everything running before they get in taxes income etc. It is offset by assets (buildings) and interest rates are low right now. The Government expects this borrowing to keep increasing a lot up until at least 2020 (if Brexit doesn't cause any financial problems). The Tories have borrowed more than all Labour governments before them but some of that is explained by differences in the country (its grown) compared to 20 years ago. A lot of the austerity measures only make small dents into overall government spend, you need to increase your income and worth to keep up with it. Governments will argue how this is achieved but the bottom line is all spend and borrow more than they have incoming at any moment. Probably like most of its citizens.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...et-its-money-and-what-does-it-spend-it-all-on

 

[Bold Seagull]

Fair point, though not remotely comparable in scale.

Tunnel vision.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...se-minister-james-wharton-visits-to-the-north

£40,000 like this, just wasted doesn't even register in such massive figures. In fact the government last year only payed £9 billion into the EU fund, out of s spend of £810 billion, which made me raise my eyes with some of the NHS promises made in the referendum, especially when we get x amount back in rebate and infrastructure spends.

 

[Weststander]

Housing is the biggest issue which needs addressing. A lack of supply over the last 21 years, under various governments, compared to the huge population increase and natural division into smaller family units, has driven the spectacular property price increases in Southern England.

For those of us lucky enough to have bought in the 90's, especially in areas such as Brighton and Hove, Lewes, Surrey, Devon and Cornwall, the paper gains have been many fold.

At the same time blocking the younger generations from getting on the property ladder, or having to buy small flats at eye watering prices.

This is where much of the disconnect between the generations originates.

The only solution I can see is to massively increase housebuilding in the southern half of England, including as many housing association units as possible.

But then all the sitting-nicely folk fight every brownfield and greenfield development every step of the way.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

The top 1% rule us! We are robots! Stop listening to them

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[JC Footy Genius]

If you can look beyond the minor matter of the top two labour peeps associating with and honouring numerous terrorists, hard left takeover of the Labour party, ongoing endemic antisemitism, fantasy economic policy, CND man in charge of the nuclear deterrent, the Shadow Chancellor wanting to bring down capitalism, Diane Abbott running the home office, a leader who is clearly not up to the job, numerous moderate MP's under threat of deselection, splits infighting etc ... they look an impressive government in waiting.

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

If you can look beyond the minor matter of the top two labour peeps associating with and honouring numerous terrorists, hard left takeover of the Labour party, ongoing endemic antisemitism, fantasy economic policy, CND man in charge of the nuclear deterrent, the Shadow Chancellor wanting to bring down capitalism, Diane Abbott running the home office, a leader who is clearly not up to the job, numerous moderate MP's under threat of deselection, splits infighting etc ... they look an impressive government in waiting.

One of the things that really annoys me about this Labour party is their disregard for democracy. They repeatedly tell the Conservatives to "move aside" and tell us they are "ready to form a government".

I wish someone would remind them that parties in government do not simply move aside, they have to be voted out by the people of this nation. They are not ready to govern because in last yeas general election they did not receive anywhere near enough votes to form a government. Gordon Brown won more votes two elections ago than Corbyn won last time out. Yet the Labour party went on some weird lap of honor, as if they won the election.

 

[sir albion]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...se-minister-james-wharton-visits-to-the-north

£40,000 like this, just wasted doesn't even register in such massive figures. In fact the government last year only payed £9 billion into the EU fund, out of s spend of £810 billion, which made me raise my eyes with some of the NHS promises made in the referendum, especially when we get x amount back in rebate and infrastructure spends.

What promises was that as the word "COULD" was used just like all the scaremongering we get now by leaving.There's a lot more to the EU than the monetary side of things and what they're creating that many here and in Europe don't like.
Not everything is about the economy even though I'm sure we'll prosper much more out of the EU and hopefully get some backbone back that's badly missing.

The liberals will keep on crying regardless but it's time they grew up !!

 

[BLOCK F]

If you can look beyond the minor matter of the top two labour peeps associating with and honouring numerous terrorists, hard left takeover of the Labour party, ongoing endemic antisemitism, fantasy economic policy, CND man in charge of the nuclear deterrent, the Shadow Chancellor wanting to bring down capitalism, Diane Abbott running the home office, a leader who is clearly not up to the job, numerous moderate MP's under threat of deselection, splits infighting etc ... they look an impressive government in waiting.

I think you may have a point!

I think the Jezzas are really just over- excited Jizzas!

 

[Bold Seagull]

One of the things that really annoys me about this Labour party is their disregard for democracy. They repeatedly tell the Conservatives to "move aside" and tell us they are "ready to form a government".

I wish someone would remind them that parties in government do not simply move aside, they have to be voted out by the people of this nation. They are not ready to govern because in last yeas general election they did not receive anywhere near enough votes to form a government. Gordon Brown won more votes two elections ago than Corbyn won last time out. Yet the Labour party went on some weird lap of honor, as if they won the election.

Oh seriously, it is pretty clear they mean to call a general election, just as May did last year on a whim to gain a few more seats. As for votes in 2010 Brown got 8,609,527. Corbyn in 2017 got 12,878,460. Not sure about your maths, but that was an increase of 4,268,933 votes. Just to put that in perspective, May got just 758,224 votes more and needed to get into bed with a minority far right party in order to form a government.

 

[highflyer]

is there evidence? is any objective or subjectively extracted? or are we simply told this is bad and accept it on face value? if a person has an average income, does it really matter to them, their life and opportunities that someone else has an income 5 times or 100 times that? it seems to me a very much first world problem, for centuries the problems facing the population were survival and real abject poverty. today in the west the problem is whether you can afford a certain lifestyle.




you do not need to be wealthy to start media, share news and information, so we should look more closely at other reasons to identify why there is a particular slant to media. taxes on income from wealth may be lower, have you accounted for risk? you do not acquire much income from assets without some risk of loss. we want to encourage investment, people always forget this when worrying about accumulation of wealth. remove wealth and you remove investment, as seen in every state thats tried it, so everyone is equally poor.

Evidence - yes there is lots, including from the IMF here: https://www.elibrary.imf.org/abstra...64/11692-9781463926564_A001.xml?redirect=true (though I will caveat that, by sayig I am not sure that paper specifically considers the UK - and I have only read the abstract)

You can do your own research, but a good starting point is here: https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/books-inequality

Of course you dodn't need to be wealthy to start a blog. But I think the traditional print and broadcast meda still exert significant influence. And the last years have shown, being able to throw substantial resources at buying and analysing data can make a huge difference to how, and to whom, you can get your messages out. And controlling the media is only one of the many ways that wealth can be used to exert influence over politics.

Investment? Well, by far the most effective investor, in terms of raising productivity, is often the state. And all evidence shows that excessive wealth accumulation leads away from productive investment not towards it. Witness the trillion $ cash piles sitting offshore. Post crash - all that pumping money into the system from the top just hasn't worked in terms of increasing investment into productivity as far as I am aware?

And risk. Honestly, I don't think there is much 'risk' involved in inheriting a pile of cash. Or sitting on a property and watching its value grow. Risk is usually taken at the smaller scale. the big boys don't do risk. They don't need to.

 

[highflyer]

Good morning grumpy old man. I am 70, but not too grumpy I hope.
I haven't got the time to reply in detail to your thoughtful post as I have to go and see my father , a truly, mega grumpy old man of 101!
The only point I would like to make is that the really wealthy/ and or those 'at the top' make up a very small percentage of the population and that by taxing them to buggery wouldn't really do a lot for inequality in real terms, even assuming the progressive Government that you would like to see would spend the extra dosh wisely.To make a real difference you are going to have to start taxing more a lot further down the food chain. This is where, for most people, it becomes more contentious and personal. If you clobber the aspirational, hard working, responsible middle income strivers, you are going to piss off an awful lot of people who, to coin a phrase, 'just want to do my best for myself and my family'. Mr Progressive Chancellor, do this at your peril.
Not all is lost, there are surely enough clever people of all political shades in this country, who could put forward a series of practical thoughts and philosophies to improve the lot of everyone, without the need to destroy ambition and aspiration amongst a whole swathe of the population, which in my humble opinion is what a Corbyn/McDonnell would do. And I haven't even touched on defence of the realm, terrorist sympathising and all the other nutty ideas that have come to light!
Off to see old mega grumpy man now.................I am very grateful he isn't running the country!

I agree that we will need to pay more tax 'further down the food chain'. And there is evidence that plenty of us are willing to consider that, as long as we believe that it will result in the better public services that that we all want. But convincing people to do this won't be easy as long as they think those at the top are 'getting away with it'. So starting at the top is a political, rather than fiscal, necessity. Also taxing wealth is about avoiding concentrations of power, not just moblising resources.
.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I follow the Telegraph on social media and my barometer for how well Corbyn and labour are doing is how many stories i see them writing about how dangerous Corbyn, McDonnell and momentum are. The more worried central office is the greater the volume of hatchet pieces. Currently it feels like no journalist at the Telegraph is working on anything else.

 

[beorhthelm]

...Witness the trillion $ cash piles sitting offshore.

seriously do you believe there are "cash piles" offshore? its economic nonsense, its just holding companies with allocations of shares and such. money doesnt stay still, it moves on the next investment, even if the holder directly doesnt and the banks do it. and its relative, we are offshore from the point of view of non-UK residents, many of those $ trillions are flowing through the markets here. state spending shocking for productivity, investments barely better, and only measurable indirectly (we're healthier/better educated so do more).

the linked research abstract seems to say "maybe, but tread carefully" with a title implying bias. Piketty in the other link is vangaurd of advancing wealth taxes so hardly objective and known to be selective about what is included in the stats, in particular mssing all the product of the state and existing redistribution.

 

[Eeyore]

I follow the Telegraph on social media and my barometer for how well Corbyn and labour are doing is how many stories i see them writing about how dangerous Corbyn, McDonnell and momentum are. The more worried central office is the greater the volume of hatchet pieces. Currently it feels like no journalist at the Telegraph is working on anything else.

And they are preaching to the converted.