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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2021 23:37:12 GMT
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 Now on this one we reach that tricky little things called analysing the stats. My first and obvious question is what is the base point for this 7.5% growth? If we are talking annual growth then I might point out that 7.5% will probably not see things back to where they were pre-covid. The Tories are going to trick people with this method of measurement. Don't be fooled by it. It's just the economy getting going again. The second point I will make (Huw alludes to it below) is what is so great about economic growth? Would you rather sit and watch a beautiful sunset across the Valley with Maidstone nestling down below or watch Maidstone burning. The latter may bring economic growth because of all the industries and work involved in rebuilding Maidstone. The former will bring a nice warm glow and a feeling of happiness. I know which I would choose. |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2021 23:40:59 GMT
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. I'm not interested in trade deals (although I do recognise it is great that we can now sell our apples to India with more ease) when we will be losing jobs, seeing lower wages etc with an influx of Indians running our services into the ground. We need to TAKE BACK CONTROL of our borders!!! |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2021 23:44:20 GMT
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. Huw you are so bang on with this. Why is it such a holy grail? Kuznets thought it was mental that it was used as a holy grail which tells you all you need to know. I'm so pleased I am going to send you some free sandals  |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2021 23:51:33 GMT
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). I simply could not have worded this better myself. I'm glad to see Mr JDL voting Greens. If he can chat on with stuff like this then he is welcome to come and join in. We've polled pretty well in these elections and people are starting to wake up to a real alternative to lies and degradation of our society and planet. There are several answers to the 'economy must always grow' connundrum. 1) No it musn't. 2) Ask why 3) Have the same stuff each year and put up prices and wages the same level each year keeping sharing exactly the same. Hey presto! The economy grows each year and the people that like that are kept happy. |
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2021 7:36:57 GMT
They say don't shoot the messenger, but somebody was certainly taking the piss when Grant Schapps told us the 'countries' on the green list yesterday.
Australia and New Zealand won't actually let us in at the moment. Falklands and South Georgia? Close to the Antarctic and, er, it's winter down there. Does South Georgia actually have any hotels?
Brunei and Singapore both seem a long way to go for a week's sunbathing, while Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha are tiny dots in the South Atlantic.
So that leaves Iceland (the name is a bit of a giveaway), Gibraltar (a few British pubs and some monkeys), Israel (fascinating place, but security issues) and Portugal, which admittedly includes islands like the Azores and Madeira.
So, not much choice then. Personally, I don't mind a bit, but why create a list like that in the first place, especially when some of them aren't technically sovereign countries and others don't even want us yet? Also, shouldn't North Korea be on the list, as they have no Covid at all?!?
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2021 8:03:53 GMT
Back to politics then, and Keir Starmer signally failed to learn the lessons of the remain campaign in the Brexit debate. Simply rubbishing your opponent isn't enough to win elections any more. Many people are at a complete loss to know what Labour's direction is now. We all know Boris is entirely governed by self interest so highlighting more examples of it was never going to be a winning tactic, and let's be honest, as an example of sleaze, the downing Street refurbishment is pretty small beer. Labour need concentrate on policy and stop the mud slinging.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2021 9:39:31 GMT
Policy, what policy? Not sure they have one and certainly nothing stands out. Grieves me to say that unless they sort themselves big time, the next general election is for the Tories to lose. The electorate have shown over the years that they aren't interested in minor parties - however plausible they might be, so if Labour don't extract the digit, we are looking at Tory landslides for the foreseeable future.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2021 10:44:08 GMT
Policy, what policy? Not sure they have one and certainly nothing stands out. Grieves me to say that unless they sort themselves big time, the next general election is for the Tories to lose. The electorate have shown over the years that they aren't interested in minor parties - however plausible they might be, so if Labour don't extract the digit, we are looking at Tory landslides for the foreseeable future. Your first sentence sums up exactly the point I was making. No one knows what they stand for anymore. It's bad for the country, not just politically, but generally that we don't have an effective opposition. They really should have made mincemeat of the Tories on Thursday. Apart from the vaccine rollout, the handling of the pandemic has been massively incompetent and Labour have utterly failed to hold the government to account. Not only that, they haven't come up with any alternatives. Pandemic aside, the handling of the trade negotiations have basically been an abject surrender to the point where we might just have well remained in the EU, and yet Labour have been notable for their complete silence on the issue. Seems to me they're being paid very handsomely for sitting in Westminster doing bugger all. |
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2021 16:29:45 GMT
No real surprise at all. Hartlepool, after all effectively voted Labour out last time, it's just that the right-wing vote was split betten the Brexit Party and the Tories.
Labour was always two parties struggling to cooperate. In my own time in the local party (pre-Blair), there was an obvious split between the working class members and the middle class ones. The local party was pretty much run by the middle class members, but needed the support of the good citizens of Parkwood and Shepway because that's where 'our' only councilors came from (Labour always won those three wards in those days, so always had at lest nine councilors). Meetings were thus a bit of a nightmare, with one side discussing politics and strategy and the other side going on about rent, dustbins and dog poo.
To put it crudely, the people Labour needed to be sucessful supported it because it supported their aspirations (or so they believed), not because they had any particular interest in, or understanding of, left-wing politics. Once they no longer needed Labour (post-Thatcher), they had no difficulty at all in switching their support to the Tories. In my experience, many, if not most, of the working class people in Labour were basically (small initial) tories at heart anyway. There would often be moments at meetings when a representative from Shepway or Parkwood would say something so heart-stoppingly un-PC that there would just be silence from the other side of the room.
If the rest of the party was like that, it's no surprise at all that Labour is in trouble. The working class has just shifted to its natural home - the party of self-interest. My only surprise is that the split I clearly saw happeing in the 80s has taken this long to become fatal. If it hadn't have been for the collapse of the Tories, post-Thatcher, and the arrival of Saint Blair, it woul have happened 20 years ago.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2021 7:14:26 GMT
Remember reading somewhere that at the height of the Blair years, the Tories were worried they might disappear, as New Labour had stolen the middle ground from them. The architect of their revival was initially none other than Michael Gove, who developed much of their strategy to challenge Blair. Apparently, Keith Joseph was similarly the brains behind Thatcher.
However, arguable that Blair and Brown did much of the hard graft for them and it may be that we have to wait for the current regime to do the same, as per the 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' premise. Otherwise, suspect it will require proportional representation, rather than simple majority, to effect a real change in our political system and with the Tories holding so much power, that ain't going to happen any time soon.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2021 9:24:15 GMT
In my own time in the local party (pre-Blair), there was an obvious split between the working class members and the middle class ones. The local party was pretty much run by the middle class members, but needed the support of the good citizens of Parkwood and Shepway because that's where 'our' only councillors came from (Labour always won those three wards in those days, so always had at lest nine councillors). Very true. It at least enabled me to vote Communist once in the local elections, back in the 70s, the candidate living in Shepway. But these days, what's a poor left wing non-aligned socialist boy meant to do? I didn't use my second vote for the Police Commissioner last week because there was no acceptable alternative candidate. This post was meant to be non-political (I mean the Commissioner, not what I'm writing), but that's gone out of the window. Bring back the days when he/she took on a lazy unemployed drug taker to give her a leg up - not Ann Barnes' fault people always to revert to type! |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2021 10:13:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2021 0:03:38 GMT
Johnson's plan - vaccine roll-out vs third wave of virus - gambled on no more-infectious new variant and no disruption* to vaccination.
And now we have both, just as we all go back down the pub - with 45% of the population still unvaccinated, including nearly all the 20-45 age group (the most likely to spread the virus).
Johnson's hesitation (again) over an Indian travel ban could define his time as PM.
(*we have plenty of AstraZenica, but can't use that on the under-40s - and Pfizer is harder to get hold of)
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2021 2:57:16 GMT
Johnson's plan - vaccine roll-out vs third wave of virus - gambled on no more-infectious new variant and no disruption* to vaccination. And now we have both, just as we all go back down the pub - with 45% of the population still unvaccinated, including nearly all the 20-45 age group (the most likely to spread the virus). Johnson's hesitation (again) over an Indian travel ban could define his time as PM. (*we have plenty of AstraZenica, but can't use that on the under-40s - and Pfizer is harder to get hold of) I have just had my second Pfizer jab and I can tlle ewe there RR know fide essects all alt. I ma as left as near,jerst a saw thingy attached to the uvver thingy. |
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2021 9:42:51 GMT
Johnson's plan - vaccine roll-out vs third wave of virus - gambled on no more-infectious new variant and no disruption* to vaccination. And now we have both, just as we all go back down the pub - with 45% of the population still unvaccinated, including nearly all the 20-45 age group (the most likely to spread the virus). Johnson's hesitation (again) over an Indian travel ban could define his time as PM. (*we have plenty of AstraZenica, but can't use that on the under-40s - and Pfizer is harder to get hold of) so apart from these 60 million doses and the Indian variant responding to current vaccines, we're totally stuffed. I will agree that hesitating on the travel ban to India was mystifying. As is anyone's need to travel abroad atm - whether it be for Uncle Puneet's funeral, maintaining the family holiday home on the Costa Brava or whatever. I don't get it. I'm currently self-isolating - got a cataract operation next Wednesday! I'll be able to see Maidstone supporters' faces and defenders' slip-ups even more clearly next season! [phones to cancel op...] |
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