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I would be more annoyed if they created 150 Tory Peers to get their bill through.
Marc wrote: "I would be more annoyed if they created 150 Tory Peers to get their bill through."Don't give them any ideas. :)
I'm not, I've heard that Cameron's considering it
Why? It's only what Labour did, which is why we are now having this discussion.
Actually Geoff, I think the Tories have more Peers than labour ( although it may be the other way round - the margin is very small).The difference is the Lib Dem peers and the cross benchers / independants.
If Cameron created enough Tory Peers to have an outright majority over all the others, does that rank as a coup d'etat?
Will wrote: "Actually Geoff, I think the Tories have more Peers than labour ( although it may be the other way round - the margin is very small).The difference is the Lib Dem peers and the cross benchers / in..."
It probably does, but I doubt if the British public would do anything about it - they'd probably blame it on the EU.
R.M.F wrote: "Will wrote: "Actually Geoff, I think the Tories have more Peers than labour ( although it may be the other way round - the margin is very small).The difference is the Lib Dem peers and the cross ..."
not blame Scotland?
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Why? It's only what Labour did, which is why we are now having this discussion."did Labour do it to get one specific piece of legislation through?
Marc wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Will wrote: "Actually Geoff, I think the Tories have more Peers than labour ( although it may be the other way round - the margin is very small).The difference is the Lib Dem peers ..."
Out of principal, the SNP don't sit in the Lords - they can hardly be blamed for what goes on inside that calcified institution.
Will wrote: "Actually Geoff, I think the Tories have more Peers than labour ( although it may be the other way round - the margin is very small).The difference is the Lib Dem peers and the cross benchers / in..."
http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-an...
So the Tories are the largest group, then, Geoff.
But still not a third of the total. They'd probably have to create the best part of 200 to get a majority. (Given the way members of the house of lords ignore party whips at times)Actually his best bet would be to impose compulsory retirement at 70 and see what was left. He could probably get a majority rather more easily then
Will wrote: "So the Tories are the largest group, then, Geoff."Apparently so, Will. If you retire all those over 70, Jim there'll only be two left and knowing their luck it will be one Conservative and one Labour.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Apparently so, Will. If you retire all those over 70, Jim there'll only be two left and knowing their luck it will be one Conservative and one Labour. ..."Plus the bishops who all have to retire at 70 anyway :-)
Osborne's economics do not add up. As I've been arguing. Tory policy is fundamentally wrong.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...
Our economy is screwed but the big problem is that we've reached a situation where our energy costs and our labour costs are too high to compete on 'bulk' commodity and manufacturing and our education is too poor to compete at the cutting edge in the sort of numbers we need to keep the show on the road.In crude terms what do we sell to pay for the food and energy we end up having to import? We can always print more money but nobody has to accept it, we've got away with it because the dollar and euro have also been mass produced and they're holding the pound up
This is down of course to the mad thatcher's deliberate destruction of our manufacturing base, whilst driving house prices and living costs upwards.The imbalance was always going to hit eventually, as 'invisibles' - banking and shares - were never going to replace manufacturing as a creator of wealth.
It's no use saying labour costs are too high Jim, when in the hands of the actual labourers the income is inadequate to pay for housing and food and energy.
also the mad rush to credit with credit cards and ridiculously easy loans and that was before the days of Wonga et al. Our so called boom times of the 80s and to some extent the 90s were built on the Never Never
Will wrote: "This is down of course to the mad thatcher's deliberate destruction of our manufacturing base, whilst driving house prices and living costs upwards.The imbalance was always going to hit eventuall..."
It's all very well to put all the blame on mad thatcher (sic), but really the truth was that our manufacturing base was a busted flush. Old equipment and practices meant that we were uncompetitive and the companies were too short-sighted to reinvest in new machinery and training.
Anyone who had seen the way that the government baled out BL, the NCB and others, knew that it was a hopeless cause. There were no other choices available and the Conservative governments of the 1980s saw this, luckily. Otherwise we'd now be a country with no manufacturing and no service and banking sector either.
If Thatcher hadn't had advisors that saw this coming, we'd now have a bankrupt country that would have blamed Thatcher for not doing anything.
we do have a bankrupt country, just no politician of any stripe has the cojones to admit it.And Thatcher started the demise, by not offering proper retraining and reskilling but just throwing them on the scrapheap. However Blair & brown continued the neglect of these communities and are hardly less culpabale, especially as notionally these would have been in the main Labour supporters, which is why chunks of the working class went over to UKIP at the last election.
Marc wrote: "we do have a bankrupt country, just no politician of any stripe has the cojones to admit it.And Thatcher started the demise, by not offering proper retraining and reskilling but just throwing them on the scrapheap. However Blair & brown continued the neglect of these communities and are hardly less culpabale, especially as notionally these would have been in the main Labour supporters, which is why chunks of the working class went over to UKIP at the last election."
Well they had piss poor aim, when they went over to UKIP as none of them seemed to have arrived in the polling booths.
And no, Thatcher didn't throw them on the scrapheap, the employers did that 30 years before they lost their jobs, when they were taking the profits instead of reinvesting.
When you have no investment for 30 years, no government could sustain the level of spending required to save manufacturing and there was no time to let the fruits of that training and investment to bear fruit.
message 2273:
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Oct 29, 2015 06:10AM)
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If you look at the manufacturing companies that did survive, Rolls-Royce Aerospace and BAe Systems for example, both survived because they spent money on development and training. The cost to Rolls-Royce was incredibly painful, including being forced into receivership when they were developing the RB211 that is the basis of the current range of Trent engines.
some of these were state owned industries. Governments have to bear responsibility for those as well as the execs they put in place to run them.I think Labour voters did go over to UKIP especially in the North. Why UKIP failed to get across the line is that Tories who flirted with them ran scared of the prospect of a Lab-SNP pact and went back to Cameron. But yes there is piss poor aim involved for any working class voter who sees UKIP as the solution to their gripes. But when Labour have failed them for so many years, they are hardly the solution for them either.
Will wrote: "This is down of course to the mad thatcher's deliberate destruction of our manufacturing base, whilst driving house prices and living costs upwards.The imbalance was always going to hit eventuall..."
Yip, the chickens have well and truly came home to roost.
Up here in Scotland, despite running a surplus for decades, we've been saddled with our share of the UK's deficit...
You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett formula that reckoned that there were twice as many Scots living in Scotland as actually were?If you didn't run a surplus, you need taking out and hung from a lamp post. Believe me, that's not something you should boast about.
Will wrote: "It's no use saying labour costs are too high Jim, when in the hands of the actual labourers the income is inadequate to pay for housing and food and energy. ..."The problem with housing is that the costs are driven up by local vested interests.
Try building anywhere decent and the nimbys are out in force. A government that did anything that would drive house prices down would be swept away by the votes of those who have got a lot of money tied up in their houses.
Not only that but frankly we need the money in houses so old people have the money to pay for care in their final years.
With regard to food and energy, the problem is that for them we have to pay a world price.
We either produce stuff other people are willing to pay for
or
We borrow money off them so we can afford to buy stuff.
or
We print money to pay them with.
The problem with the first is that we don't do it, and frankly haven't pretty much since the war. The industries we lost were overmanned and hemorrhaging money. Money that should have been invested was firstly spent in keeping them afloat, and then went abroad because the returns weren't available in the UK.
The problem with the second is that they want interest on the money they lend us. At the moment we're apparently paying £35 billion a year with interest rates as low as they are
http://bracknellconservatives.org.uk/...
The problem with the third issue is that our money is worth what people are give for it. If you keep printing, eventually the currency becomes devalued and at the extremes you end up with worthless paper.
So how are people to be supported?
Well at a population level if they want to eat and keep warm they've got to produce something worth at least as much as the food and warmth.
Individuals who cannot pay through no fault of their own obviously have to be supported. Ideally until they can support themselves, but in some cases they're never going to be able to support themselves to the support has to be long term.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett formula that reckoned that there were twice as many Scots living in Scotland as actually were?If you didn't run a surplus, you need t..."
Nothing wrong with my calculations, or my claim. I stand by every word.
message 2279:
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Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)
(last edited Oct 29, 2015 08:31AM)
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R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett formula that reckoned that there were twice as many Scots living in Scotland as act..."Yes, but at the moment Scotland is not spending its own money, it's spending money given to it by its next door neighbour. Therefore there is no worries.
However, the problem comes when the next door neighbour stops giving you money because, say, you go off in a strop and stop talking to them. Now you have to go out and work and earn enough to carry on spending. That's when the problems start and you get a nasty dose of reality.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett formula that reckoned that there were twice as many Scots living in S..."Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's land,
Tell old Pharaoh,
Let my people go.
:)
R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett formula that reck...Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's land,
Tell old Pharaoh,
Let my people go."
Are you really comparing the situation of the Scots to that of American slaves in the South?
Jim wrote: "You're the ones who voted to stay"Not me. I'm innocent, guv.
Marc wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculated Barnett for..."No, I was comparing my sober mind to my mind with a few drinks in it :)
R.M.F wrote: "Jim wrote: "You're the ones who voted to stay"Not me. I'm innocent, guv."
Unlikely to be innocent. Voting-wise, perhaps.
I was a campaigner for the Yes side. There is actually something quite enjoyable about walking the streets handing out leaflets and talking to people during an election campaign.
It's what democracy is all about.
I would encourage others to do it.
R.M.F wrote: "Marc wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "You mean running a surplus because of a miscalculate..."The big issue in British politics is what purchase Jeremy Corbyn has with the electorate.
The coming by-election might cast a little light on it. In crude terms if UKIP take the seat then I would suggest Labour needs a rethink. If Labour greatly increase their majority then it may be that Labour now appeals more to their traditional voters.
I agree Jim, it will be a real litmus test, even though a week is a long time in politics let alone 5 years
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "An interesting perspective piece.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/polit..."
I don't know Geoff, it read more like a 'reassure the faithful' to me. Whilst I think the writer was correct in saying osborne is damaged internally, I think he's entirely wrong in saying that the marginal Tory seats are not at risk over the tax credits issue. The Independent's analysis last week showed that the pitiful rise in the minimum wage goes nowhere near replacing the the tax credit losses most working families will experience - and that is going to impact on their views, isn't it?
What, I think, the writer is trying to say is that the reason that Tory seats are not at risk is that it's going to be years before they come up for electoral test. Knowing the public's poor memory for changes like the Tax Credit reforms, the government will not be punished for it come election time.
The other issue is what proportion of Tory seats have voters who'll be hit badly enough by tax credit changes to worry about it in four years time.
Forgive me for banging on about the Scottish independence referendum again :)but I'll say this to those who think that voters will forget about tax credit cuts in five years time:
During the referendum, the entire nation, regardless if they were Yes or No, were fully engaged with politics on a scale that I have never seen before in my, admittedly, short life.
People were talking about politics everywhere you went, and a lot of people became more knowledgeable about politics, which politicians hate, because they started asking politicians awkward questions.
Scotland leads the way in the UK in this regard, but the rest of the UK will catch up with this EU referendum, and I predict more people in England will become more clued up on politics.
Referendums are a simple Yes/No, the turnout will likely be pretty high, and more people who've never been involved in campaigns, will actually find it to be an enjoyable experience.
This won't die down overnight, and we'll see the knock on effect in 2020, regardless of who wins the EU referendum vote, because once people become politicised, they never go back IMO
England is about to wake up.
In effect the gamble is twofold; will wages have risen enough by the next general election for a majority of voters to either forget or forgive: AND will the by elections during the life of the parliament not punish the Tories so badly that they can't govern as a majority.
"once people become politicised they never go back". That is a nonsense. Look at party membership figures, paltry. Yes Corbynmania has seen a surge, mainly among the young. Once they all get their mortgages and sky dishes they won't be out pounding the streets handing out leaflets.We have a 'representative' democracy whereby we depute politicians to represent us because we can't be arsed to do the work ourselves. If we did, we wouldn't need politicians but could rule ourselves via online plebiscites. But then you'd have to forgo the pub to stay at home and read White papers on EU fish quotas
R.M.F wrote: "England is about to wake up. ..."That is not normally regarded as a good thing.
Especially by thinking Scots politicians who realise that not only might the English leave the union but they might take anything worth having with them
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "England is about to wake up. ..."That is not normally regarded as a good thing.
Especially by thinking Scots politicians who realise that not only might the English leave the union but they might take anything worth having with them "
bang goes the Edinburgh arts scene. Although that may be viewed as a good thing
Marc wrote: ""once people become politicised they never go back". That is a nonsense. Look at party membership figures, paltry. Yes Corbynmania has seen a surge, mainly among the young. Once they all get their ..."I speak from personal experience, and I believe that the effect of the EU referendum will energise the English people in a way not seen for generations.
Jim wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "England is about to wake up. ..."That is not normally regarded as a good thing.
Especially by thinking Scots politicians who realise that not only might the English leave the union ..."
I'm all in favour of England leaving the union, but I would say that :)
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Basically the amount of law that parliament wants to inflict on us, there literally isn't the time to do it using formal acts of parliament.
If I remember right, SIs pass automatically unless somebody 'prays against them' at which point they have to be discussed and debated. A lot of EU stuff just goes through.