UK - December 2019 General Election

[P.J. Denyer]

You can get that in a tweet with just a little bit of trimming...

Not at the moment, I appealed a vexatious complaint about one of my tweets and I've currently been suspended for almost two months waiting for twitter to look at it.

 

[Rolfe]

Good for you. I appealled similar but my appeal was ignored and after two or three weeks I just deleted the tweets in question. It was ridiculous though. (I've tweeted that anyway, I thought it was a bit insightful and a bit funny.)

 

[Arcade22]

Successive governments in the UK have been working hard for decades to get rid of those sorts of polluting companies!

Yeah but i thought Corbyn was all about how terrible it was that they closed the coal mines and steel mills. One of the reasons he said leaving the EU was a good thing was because it would allow him to subsidizing those kind of emissions and pollution heavy industries with impunity.

Either they have concluded that they won't win the election, and thus don't have to worry about breaking any commitments made, or Labour is being delusional in thinking that a "green new deal" is feasible while striving towards making “the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030 in a way that is evidence-based”. You can't consume yourself out of a sustainable development problem I'm afraid.

Or maybe all those factories will be operated by Unicorns that suck CO₂ straight out of the atmosphere and turns it into finished goods. Naturally the Unicorns work for free, of course.

 

[Arcade22]

Let's not forgot it also suggests:




https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2019-50531778

Anyone actually think that's going to translate into stronger rights and more accountability?

Who will be the first to reintroduce the death penalty: Russia, or the UK?

Not even Russia officially kills its own citizens for their crimes (real, imagined or fabricated), it just lies about doing it even if no one believes them, just to keep up the pretense that they follow the laws that they have made themselves.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Good for you. I appealled similar but my appeal was ignored and after two or three weeks I just deleted the tweets in question. It was ridiculous though. (I've tweeted that anyway, I thought it was a bit insightful and a bit funny.)

To be honest, by this point it's one part stuborn, one part 'can't be bothered' and one part 'in the time I would have been on Twitter I've learned the lead guitar part to "Spaceman" by The Killers'.

 

[Rolfe]

That last bit sounds tempting. I have music to transcribe and learn too.

 

[ceptimus]

Handy cut out and keep guide to the election manafestos

Labour: Promise to spend loads of money undoing the damage previous Conservative governments have done to the Police, NHS and public services.

Conservative: Promise to spend loads of money undoing the damage previous Conservative governments have done to the Police, NHS and public services.

For every extra pound the Tories have pledged to spend, Labour has pledged twenty eight. Source: today's Guardian front page. The Lib Dems have also pledged to spend about twenty times as much as the Tories.

 

[Trebuchet]

For every extra pound the Tories have pledged to spend, Labour has pledged twenty eight. Source: today's Guardian front page. The Lib Dems have also pledged to spend about twenty times as much as the Tories.

Sounds like Republican magical thinking in the USA. We're going to cut taxes, quadruple military spending, give everybody Trumpcare, and it won't add a dime to the deficit.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Speaking of the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/24/labours-spending-plans-arent-especially-unusual-just-look-at-sweden

 

[Worm]

Handy cut out and keep guide to the election manafestos

Labour: Promise to spend loads of money undoing the damage previous Conservative governments have done to the Police, NHS and public services.

Conservative: Promise to spend loads of money undoing the damage previous Conservative governments have done to the Police, NHS and public services.

(shamelessly stolen from my friend's Twitter, who stole it from Bill)

"I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs."
"I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking."
"Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!”

Bill Hicks on #Brexit, 1997

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

For every extra pound the Tories have pledged to spend, Labour has pledged twenty eight. Source: today's Guardian front page. The Lib Dems have also pledged to spend about twenty times as much as the Tories.

Does that include the GDP hit from Boris's No Deal Brexit?

 

[Lothian]

For every extra pound the Tories have pledged to spend, Labour has pledged twenty eight. Source: today's Guardian front page. The Lib Dems have also pledged to spend about twenty times as much as the Tories.

Thank you for pointing that out. Obviously your stats lack a bit of meaning without the income side of the equation but they make a very important point.

We know from the brexit debate how immigrants have been contributers to the UK economy with their net per head contribution exceeding that of native citizens. We also know that windfall was spent by the Tories on things like a tax cut on the highest earners and not on public services.
Public services are still overstretched. We know from your summary above that the Labour and LibDems want to redress that by investing in things like hospitals and schools.
The Tories in contrast want to put more money in people's pocket so they can afford private education and private healthcare.
It is a clear choice.

 

[Dave Rogers]

For every extra pound the Tories have pledged to spend, Labour has pledged twenty eight. Source: today's Guardian front page. The Lib Dems have also pledged to spend about twenty times as much as the Tories.

But, using Boris Johnson arithmetic, the Tories will buy a hundred times as much infrastructure!

Dave

 

[ceptimus]

We know from the brexit debate how immigrants have been contributers to the UK economy with their net per head contribution exceeding that of native citizens.

No we don't.

 

[ceptimus]

Public services are still overstretched.

In large part due to all the immigrants increasing the country's population.

 

[Tolls]

No we don't.

https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/8747673d-3b26-439b-9693-0e250df6dbba

That's for EU migrants.
No point for anyone else as the Tories still want migrants coming in...just from elsewhere.

In large part due to all the immigrants increasing the country's population.

Well, better not hope for a Tory win then.
They've failed for the past decade on their promises to reduce immigration, and their latest promise doesn't even bother with any targets for them to aim for, showing how hopeful they are of success.

Of course, let's not forget that their wonderful points based system will result in no nurses being allowed in, or teachers, or anyone other than the relatively well-off, so should they actually succeed in reducing net migration it will be at the expense of the services that were alledgedly over-stretched.

Now, some might say that maybe it would be an idea to actually fund these services properly...but I suppose getting rid of the staff is a plan of some sort.

 

[Lothian]

We know from the brexit debate how immigrants have been contributers to the UK economy with their net per head contribution exceeding that of native citizens. We also know that windfall was spent by the Tories on things like a tax cut on the highest earners and not on public services.

No we don't.

Ah yes my bad. Sorry I forgot. I will change it.

There is a consensus among experts that immigrants have been contributers to the UK economy with their net per head contribution exceeding that of native citizens. Dave in pub, who like most brexiteers doesn't believe in experts, disagrees because he once heard an anecdote.

Better?
https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/8747673d-3b26-439b-9693-0e250df6dbba

 

[Lothian]

In large part due to all the immigrants increasing the country's population.

That may well be the case, but this election is about the solution. The past can't be changed


The labour and lib dem solution is to fix the problem by increasing the public services to cope.
The brexit party solution is, no doubt, get rid of the immigrants to reduce demand in public services, who cares if it is the immigrants we get rid of that are providing the services. we really just want to get rid of foreigners and are willing to die in hospital corridors for it.
The tories are not doing anything meaningful to address the issue other than to give people more money. That will allow some to go private but ultimately the private sector will take people from the public sector so the problem of an overall shortage of people to provide public services won't change, only who suffers from the shortages.

 

[The Don]

In large part due to all the immigrants increasing the country's population.

Nope, not even close.

It's due to the government's "Austerity" programme which is why the problems are worse in areas where the austerity programme has hit hardest and not in areas where immigration is highest (though there is some overlap between the two).

Immigrants, and especially EU immigrants are net contributors to the exchequer so if the government had chosen to continue to fund public services properly, they could have afforded to do so.

Instead they chose to cut funding to public services, especially local services, in real terms for reasons of political dogma and to give significant tax cuts to the richest people in the UK. IOW the usual Tory priorities of rewarding the rich and punishing the poor.

The fact that the effects of the under-funding also allowed immigrants to be blamed and scapegoated is just an added bonus from a Conservative perspective.

 

[The Don]

That may well be the case, but this election is about the solution. The past can't be changed

Except it isn't. Issues in the NHS aren't down to the number of working age Eastern Europeans who have come to the country over the last decade or so. Funding issues relate to increased demand from an ageing population (something which won't be fixed by stopping immigration) and as you point out below, staffing shortages aren't going to be fixed by reducing immigration.

The labour and lib dem solution is to fix the problem by increasing the public services to cope.

Because the LibDems are supporting continued free movement for EU citizens, we might also have enough tax income to afford it, and the workforce to deliver it.

The brexit party solution is, no doubt, get rid of the immigrants to reduce demand in public services, who cares if it is the immigrants we get rid of that are providing the services. we really just want to get rid of foreigners and are willing to die in hospital corridors for it.

The problem with this is that immigrants use proportionally fewer public services than native born people - primarily for demographic reasons - so driving out the immigrants will proportionately raise demand.

We'll have 10% fewer people to fund and deliver a service where demand will have fallen by maybe 5%.

The tories are not doing anything meaningful to address the issue other than to give people more money. That will allow some to go private but ultimately the private sector will take people from the public sector so the problem of an overall shortage of people to provide public services won't change, only who suffers from the shortages.

They'll be giving a few people significantly more money, most people won't notice the difference and those who need it most will suffer the most. These will likely be the same people who are already suffering because "Austerity" has hit the poorest hardest.