The Politics Thread 2019

[Uptherams]

1 hour ago, GboroRam said:

Electric car pioneer Elon Musk has picked Germany for his new factory because of Brexit, embarrassing Boris Johnson as he prepares to pledge a “clean energy revolution”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-news-latest-elon-musk-tesla-electric-car-gigafactory-uk-a9200981.html

No he didn't FFS. 

[1of4]

3 hours ago, Norman said:

They give double discount throughout the year, actually. And I already have a discount card. 1 family member living in the same house can use it too. 

It's shut Xmas Day and New Year's Day, and she isn't contracted to the days the other holidays fall on. 

Nevermind. I'm working Xmas Eve, Xmas day, my birthday, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Doubt she'd miss me if she did some overtime. 

Why I get paid more, you see. 

So just working  five days this year. Be careful you don't over do it.

[G STAR RAM]

2 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

So just working  five days this year. Be careful you don't over do it.

Bet he is praying Labour get in power so they can reduce it to 4 days...

[Wolfie]

3 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

while none of us are experts mate there’s certainly a bit more to the Venezuelan issue than you seem to think....

https://www.globalresearch.ca/john-bolton-admits-us-backed-coup-venezuela-oil-not-democracy/5667083

I'm not blind to why the US are involved but my point was that according to the UN, their economic and social collapse dates back to long before any outside interference.

[uttoxram75]

6 minutes ago, Van Wolfie said:

I'm not blind to why the US are involved but my point was that according to the UN, their economic and social collapse dates back to long before any outside interference.

Maybe the US has been indirectly involved for much longer than is thought or admitted? 

There is evidence out there to suggest that if people are interested in looking for it so its a strange stick to beat Corbyn with.

 

 

 

 

[King Kevin]

22 hours ago, reverendo de duivel said:

By the time the first train departs, cars will no longer run on petrol.

By the time the first train departs we'll all be dead.

[Wolfie]

41 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

Maybe the US has been indirectly involved for much longer than is thought or admitted? 

There is evidence out there to suggest that if people are interested in looking for it so its a strange stick to beat Corbyn with.

 

 

 

 

I’m not getting drawn into hypothetical conspiracy theories & would rather trust the UN

Corbyn is a fan of the Venezuelan brand of socialism. Presumably the thought of inflation in the millions to wipe out borrowing debt appeals to him for some reason. 

[jono]

18 hours ago, GboroRam said:

Missed appointments are a waste of resources, but do you think that's the reason why the service is failing? 

Nobody is denying that we need to manage the service and prevent abuses, but the abuses are a pittance in the grand scheme of things. However, the failings are related to chronic underfunding. At a time when average ages are lengthening, we need to be investing at a faster pace than population growth alone. 

I'm fully expecting to see the NHS further crippled in the name of the free market. By which time it'll be too late. Don't underestimate the drive to privatise the NHS - it will be gone one day soon, the way its going. 

 

I disagree. I think it is simply a function of governments trying to manage an incoming tide. The problem, no matter what your politics, is that numbers needing help and the types of help available are increasing vastly more than the national income needed to support it. We all want an NHS, it is as I said in an earlier post a jewel in our crown of civilisation, but there are so many issues that are so much more than just wanting more money for it .. money that just isn’t there in the amount that is needed. 
 

Many of us lease cars .. why ? because the leasing company reduces our exposure to the risk of ownership and enables us to have something better than we might normally expect. It defines a price for us. Yes it it makes a profit on that price but it does something for that money that is positive. 
just because we make the choice to do that doesn’t mean we have sold our soul

You could drive the no privatisation thing to the limit couldn’t you ? Why are we the NHS buying Hydraulic beds ?  .. why don’t we build an NHS factory and make our own ... fine ... you’d end up 20 years on with the Trabant of beds .. cheap, maybe .. good, are you sure ? 

This conversation needs to move away from political ideology and in to ethical behaviour of subcontracting companies, drawing up and enforcing good contracts. 
The only thing that is important is that we get treated for free at the point of delivery by right. How that treatment is paid for is about economics and good management. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a left / right thing.

and an apology to @1of4 I shouldn’t have said childish or grow up. I am a big kid too, but I honestly believe the assumption that there is an open cheque book to a bottomless bank account funded from a presumed tax take from oligarchs and tax dodgers  is available or indeed that it will work in the long term.  It has been tried before and hardly been successful.

This should never be a political battleground, this should be all of us working to find the best way to keep what we all value. 

 

 

 

[ariotofmyown]

3 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Can't accuse Boris of that. It's all about the pooging, lying and random Latin for him.

 

Oh........and being "world king". ?

To be to Johnson, he did work in the real world before politics. He was in Brussels making up lies and exaggerations for the Telegraph, lies which the right wing media used to help foster a dislike of those foreigners at the EU. It still took Russian money to get the Brexit vote arranged though. 

[ariotofmyown]

5 hours ago, Dappled Ram said:

 I have worked in Education all my life and we just keep reinventing the wheel over and over again.  Many people criticize education in the seventies and yes there was some bad practice but much good, certainly creativity and using initiative flourished. But huge scale changes were brought in again costing millions with every teacher received thick folders on all 10 subjects. Just addressing bad practice would have sufficed! I could write about this subject all day.  

Interesting comments on education there from someone working in education.

I remember some good things about my primary school in the late 80s, but there were some bad things too. Very little sport, a few dire teachers who taught nothing resembling any sort of curriculum and seeming got away with it.

My kid's primary school in comparison now seems way better for nearly everything. There ability at English and Maths is loads more than I remember doing and they have so much knowledge on important things that I didn't know for years.

Maybe they just got lucky, but state education seems to have improved no end to me. 

[uttoxram75]

2 hours ago, Van Wolfie said:

I’m not getting drawn into hypothetical conspiracy theories & would rather trust the UN

Corbyn is a fan of the Venezuelan brand of socialism. Presumably the thought of inflation in the millions to wipe out borrowing debt appeals to him for some reason. 

Is it not a hypothetical theory that Labour will create “inflation in the millions”?

It may be your opinion but that’s all.

Taking vital energy, transport and the NHS back into public control may well prove a bulwark against the hedge fund, vulture, winner take all, race to the bottom system we seem to be heading towards. 

[GboroRam]

4 hours ago, Uptherams said:

No he didn't FFS. 

“Brexit made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK,” Mr Musk said, referring to Tesla’s new battery and electric vehicle plant.

Direct quote. Blames Brexit. Agree with gstar that the context was around uncertainty. 

How many jobs are there in creating a tesla battery factory? 

[Stive Pesley]

2 hours ago, jono said:

This conversation needs to move away from political ideology and in to ethical behaviour of subcontracting companies, drawing up and enforcing good contracts. 

You raise a good point. Privatisation as a model has it's plus points on paper, if you make the assumption that both the state and the subcontractors behave ethically

It's fair to say that corporate lobbying of MPs to win contracts and take legislative decisions that favour the subcontractors - and then unethical behaviour/blind profit motives from the subcontractors once they get the work prove that assumption well and truly false

The problem with all this being that if we drew up good contracts and enforced ethical behaviour - the private companies would be far less interested in squeezing the sponge of the public purse

[Norman]

4 hours ago, 1of4 said:

So just working  five days this year. Be careful you don't over do it.

Well, no. New Year's day is next year. Are you Dianne Abbott? 

[Uptherams]

24 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

“Brexit made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK,” Mr Musk said, referring to Tesla’s new battery and electric vehicle plant.

Direct quote. Blames Brexit. Agree with gstar that the context was around uncertainty. 

How many jobs are there in creating a tesla battery factory? 

I'm an investor. This has been on the cards for years. The two realistic choices were Germany and Turkey. This has been in the pipeline since before Brexit. It was a tossup between lower manufacturing costs and a location where they can influence the manufacturers of Europe to produce electric cars at a faster pace, because Tesla directly and indirectly benefits. Tesla will produce more batteries out of this facility to the German carmakers than  they will cars itself. 

[sonofmidnight]

2 hours ago, ariotofmyown said:

Interesting comments on education there from someone working in education.

I remember some good things about my primary school in the late 80s, but there were some bad things too. Very little sport, a few dire teachers who taught nothing resembling any sort of curriculum and seeming got away with it.

My kid's primary school in comparison now seems way better for nearly everything. There ability at English and Maths is loads more than I remember doing and they have so much knowledge on important things that I didn't know for years.

Maybe they just got lucky, but state education seems to have improved no end to me. 

Thank you for your comments.  Certainly numeracy and formal English ( grammar, punctuation, and spelling) have improved but at what cost? Children are pressurised to achieve good results.  In my later years of teaching children were removed from PE, Music, Art and other subjects in order to receive extra coaching in Maths and English. This often happened on Friday afternoons.  Mental health in children is a major cause for concern. There is a very interesting article in the Guardian about escalatingmental health issues in children and as many teachers know pressure to achieve is one of several factors in this.  I  know of several children and young people who have have committed suicide, self harmed or developed anorexia in recent years.  Working in the seventies in Sheffield for over 10 years I honestly can't remember any and that was in Pitsmoor, an area of deprivation.  For children suffering now there is an incredibly long wait for psychological intervention.  The government brings in all these initiatives and doesn't think of the consequences or make provision for them. It's a bit like giving people statins to prevent deaths by heart attacks or strokes which is great except people live longer, develop dementia and then find there is no care available. Lack of forward planning once again!

[Stive Pesley]

19 minutes ago, Uptherams said:

I'm an investor. This has been on the cards for years. The two realistic choices were Germany and Turkey. This has been in the pipeline since before Brexit. It was a tossup between lower manufacturing costs and a location where they can influence the manufacturers of Europe to produce electric cars at a faster pace, because Tesla directly and indirectly benefits. Tesla will produce more batteries out of this facility to the German carmakers than  they will cars itself. 

You are correct about the gigafactory - I don't think the UK was ever in the running for it

However - back in 2014 they were planning to locate an R&D centre in the UK
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tesla/model-s/87332/tesla-plans-uk-rd-base-charging-network-and-25k-3-series-rival

but that has now been confirmed as "shelved"

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

Here's a fun stat I've nicked from private eye.....

3% is the new budget deficit target that sajid javed says is sustainable and will provide investment. 

2.8% was the budget deficit just before the financial crash which sajid javed says was labour "trashing the economy ".......

[Uptherams]

12 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

You are correct about the gigafactory - I don't think the UK was ever in the running for it

However - back in 2014 they were planning to locate an R&D centre in the UK
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tesla/model-s/87332/tesla-plans-uk-rd-base-charging-network-and-25k-3-series-rival

but that has now been confirmed as "shelved"

 

An R &D facility in reality has nothing to do with Brexit though either. Government officials are not just posturing. The UK is at the forefront of next generation tech when it comes to battery technology, etc. But that doesn't translate to large scale manufacturing. Tesla will have a presence in the UK very soon. We are a services based economy after all ? There is far larger scope for job and economic activity the route we are going within this sector than there is manufacturing. It would be nice to have both though. 

[1of4]

1 hour ago, Norman said:

Well, no. New Year's day is next year. Are you Dianne Abbott? 

Glad to hear you had New Year's Day off this year.