Political Information Social Service - Election Special

[daveharris]

May 3, 2021 10:51:53 GMT nws said:

May 2, 2021 17:37:39 GMT daveharris said:

 Please do tell us your views on arms sales to Saudi Arabia also regarding bent contracts for PPE, Not trying to escape the rabbit hole but i voted libdem last time as i was opposed to Brexit, something i think you can also blame Blair policies for (just an opinion)

I'm not sure why Blair is to blame for brexit, as opposed to the people that spread a plethora of disinformation then delivered something entirely different to what they promised, while creating some fatuous slogans on the way.

Again not trying to escape the rabbit hole, perhaps blame was a bit strong should we say his free movement policy contributed to the outcome 

[Deleted]

May 3, 2021 15:09:06 GMT daveharris said:

May 3, 2021 10:51:53 GMT nws said:

I'm not sure why Blair is to blame for brexit, as opposed to the people that spread a plethora of disinformation then delivered something entirely different to what they promised, while creating some fatuous slogans on the way.

Again not trying to escape the rabbit hole, perhaps blame was a bit strong should we say his free movement policy contributed to the outcome 

Fair enough. To me the only contribution was that it was used by a mixture of racists, xenophobes (and a lot of very decent people as well) plus people with a variety of different underhand/personal agendas to lever us out of a trading bloc and close alliance. I think the first three groups were manipulated by the fourth with a drip, drip, drip feed of lies and manipulation. Still it is done now and the first three groups will see the results of that manipulation, as will - most sadly of all - the group that didn't go for the con. While I say all of this, I do hope I have got this utterly wrong. The mess and muddle over borders in Ireland and Gibraltar along with the apparent ease of gaining whatsapp tax breaks from a corrupt government don't fill me with hope on this front though.

[Deleted]

I see we have signed a deal to allow easier access for Indians.

#takingbackcontrol

[Deleted]

Meanwhile in Ashford a man regrets trying to download all of nws and JDL's forum comments:

[Deleted]

May 6, 2021 11:26:16 GMT @oxford said:

Meanwhile in Ashford a man regrets trying to download all of nws and JDL's forum comments:

Pot and kettle at the moment...

[Deleted]

May 5, 2021 22:18:35 GMT nws said:

I see we have signed a deal to allow easier access for Indians.

#takingbackcontrol

I notice you make no reference to the massive trade dal with India.

[Deleted]

Is a trade dal like a tarka dal?

[Deleted]

May 6, 2021 13:53:31 GMT @oxford said:

Is a trade dal like a tarka dal?

Curried Indian otter😁

[Deleted]

UK economy set to grow by 7.25% ,now admittedly I am no economist but that does not sound too bad to me. Cue NWS to tell me that its bollocks and we are in fact heading for a recession, though I have to admit if he did I wouldnt know either way

[Deleted]

May 6, 2021 17:38:30 GMT sword65 said:

UK economy set to grow by 7.25% ,now admittedly I am no economist but that does not sound too bad to me. Cue NWS to tell me that its bollocks and we are in fact heading for a recession, though I have to admit if he did I wouldnt know either way

Percentages are tricky bastards. If I give you a penny and you already have one, you get a 100% increase. But, if I give you a penny and you already have a quid, you only get a 1% increase.

It depends on the base you are working from - and I imagine our base is pretty low at the moment. A much better view would be to compare the recovery against the pre-covid situation.

[Deleted]

GDP dropped 20% in Q2 2020 due to the pandemic & lockdown. It's slowly coming back. The 7.25% forecast is based on pent up demand i.e. people desperate to get out and spend the money they couldn't spend over the past year. If the forecasts are right by the end of the year the economy will be back to where it was at the end of 2019.

[Deleted]

Slightly more willing to trust economists with figures than governments as the latter like to put their own spin on things.
The classic was in the Thatcher years of very high unemployment, when they used the line of 'the rate of increase is coming down', which no doubt made more than a few Express readers think unemployment was actually falling.

Meanwhile, hands up who still wants to go on a foreign holiday, given you are likely to face anything between a three and ten hour wait to get through immigration and customs on returning to Blighty? If memory serves me correctly, apart from a few vending machines and toilets, there is no hospitality between aircraft and arrivals halls, though there's always the duty free booze I guess.
I can see it now, shit faced holiday makers fighting with each other as they 'queue' to get back in the country. On the bright side, there will at least be a chance your luggage will have reached the carousel by the time you get there -assuming it hasn't been taken by a drunken returner from an earlier flight of course.
What fun.

[Deleted]

May 6, 2021 17:38:30 GMT sword65 said:

UK economy set to grow by 7.25% ,now admittedly I am no economist but that does not sound too bad to me. Cue NWS to tell me that its bollocks and we are in fact heading for a recession, though I have to admit if he did I wouldnt know either way

Adrian votes Green so he doesn't want the economy to grow, he wants us all to live in caves making sandals out of hemp.

... but he might have a point - why is economic growth such a holy grail? As we know, in football as in general life, the rich get disproportionately richer.

The lefties on here will be delighted to hear that for the 1st time in my life I voted Labour yesterday - albeit my 2nd choice for Thames Valley Police Commissioner. I think I might be turning into a Communist.

[Deleted]

May 7, 2021 9:11:04 GMT @oxford said:

May 6, 2021 17:38:30 GMT sword65 said:

UK economy set to grow by 7.25% ,now admittedly I am no economist but that does not sound too bad to me. Cue NWS to tell me that its bollocks and we are in fact heading for a recession, though I have to admit if he did I wouldnt know either way

Adrian votes Green so he doesn't want the economy to grow, he wants us all to live in caves making sandals out of hemp.

... but he might have a point - why is economic growth such a holy grail? As we know, in football as in general life, the rich get disproportionately richer.

The lefties on here will be delighted to hear that for the 1st time in my life I voted Labour yesterday - albeit my 2nd choice for Thames Valley Police Commissioner. I think I might be turning into a Communist.

I have no answer to the 'economy must always grow' conundrum, but logic alone tells us that this is an insane method of judging success. Economies simply can't always grow.

The result of such madness is what we see around us now - exploding population, exploitation of the poorest/powerless, exhaustion of resources, climate change, and a taken for granted consumerist economic model that demands that we constantly buy new things and simply throw the old ones away (try to get almost anything repaired these days) - and that both parents 'have' to work, no matter what effect this has on children, so that we can afford that consumerist lifestyle.

And far worse is to come, as resources are further depleted and people are forced to leave their homes due to long-term drought, flooding, etc. There will be wars over water, and mass movements of people on a scale that will make our current worries about immigration and asylum seekers seem trivial.

I vote Green out of desperation and lack of choice. I am not a member of the Green Party, I don't necessarily agree with all their policies, but I simply can't see any other party that is remotely aware enough of what we are doing to the planet (and ourselves).

[Deleted]

May 7, 2021 7:30:59 GMT @61666 said:

Slightly more willing to trust economists with figures than governments as the latter like to put their own spin on things.
The classic was in the Thatcher years of very high unemployment, when they used the line of 'the rate of increase is coming down', which no doubt made more than a few Express readers think unemployment was actually falling.

Meanwhile, hands up who still wants to go on a foreign holiday, given you are likely to face anything between a three and ten hour wait to get through immigration and customs on returning to Blighty? If memory serves me correctly, apart from a few vending machines and toilets, there is no hospitality between aircraft and arrivals halls, though there's always the duty free booze I guess.
I can see it now, shit faced holiday makers fighting with each other as they 'queue' to get back in the country. On the bright side, there will at least be a chance your luggage will have reached the carousel by the time you get there -assuming it hasn't been taken by a drunken returner from an earlier flight of course.
What fun.

I remember that well. The classic misuse of percentages for me was with inflation. When this was at its height in the 70s and 80s, we were constantly reassured that "the rate" of inflation had reduced - when, of course, actual inflation was still rising!

And the misuse of ‘percentage’ and ‘percentage point’ was staggeringly confusing (no doubt deliberately so).

For instance, if inflation was 25% this month, compared to 24% last month, it had increased by 1 percentage point. But, compared to last month, when the figure had been 2 percentage points higher than the previous month, this was a reduction of 1% in the rate of inflation!. This was, of course, true in a way, but completely obscured the reality that inflation had actually risen by over 4% (1 as a percentage of 24).

And yet, strangely, when inflation reduced, they suddenly remembered the difference, and a 2 percentage point reduction in inflation (say from 25% to 23%) wasn't expressed as '2%', but as a reduction of 8% (2 as a percentage of 25)!! The end result was that most people thought that inflation had gone down by 8%.

Well, actually, most people were just utterly confused – and things still magically continued to cost more each month….