The Politics Thread 2019

[Wolfie]

14 hours ago, StivePesley said:

We don't create wealth as we used to - meaning, the money no longer trickles down - it actively flows upwards. They've spent long enough perfecting the system. If you don't think we should even try and fix that, then what's the point?

 

I disagree. There may be more super-rich and the numbers are bigger now (largely based on rapidly inflating property portfolios) but the mechanism is much the same IMO.

Poverty isn't a new thing.

The richest 1% pay 28% of all income tax. That's a hell of a shortfall to make up if we decide we want to demonise the wealthy and they bugger off elsewhere.

What we should to is incentivise them to invest more of their money into businesses and new R&D.

[Uptherams]

On 12/05/2019 at 22:42, maxjam said:

Because the party has only been around for a few weeks, the Euro Elections are rapidly approaching and their stance on that is pretty clear.  There is plenty of time to release a General Election manifesto assuming the Tories don't self destruct in the next couple of months.

I've just viewed a clip of him from this morning, discussing how the members will decide the policy. Absolutely fantastic idea. This political party is going to break our dishonest political system. The people who disagree with this party, should focus their attention back toward their own parties and expect the same treatment. 

[AndyinLiverpool]

31 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

That's the danger with all forms of government - which is why any "new way" has to have accountability in-built and as much power as possible in the hands of the public. People's banks, public housing societies, greater methods of democracy, workers in the boardroom etc

Who was it who said "if you meet someone in power, ask them 5 things. What power do you have? How did you get that power? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how do we get rid of you?"

That still sounds like a pretty strong framework to adhere to if you ask me.

I'm more bothered about that than falling for the media hysteria about how "Corbyn will definitely bankrupt the country"

Tony Benn

[maxjam]

41 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Who was it who said "if you meet someone in power, ask them 5 things. What power do you have? How did you get that power? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how do we get rid of you?"

That still sounds like a pretty strong framework to adhere to if you ask me.

 

9 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Tony Benn

@StivePesley in endorsing Brexit shocker ?

 

[jono]

38 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

That's the danger with all forms of government - which is why any "new way" has to have accountability in-built and as much power as possible in the hands of the public. People's banks, public housing societies, greater methods of democracy, workers in the boardroom etc

Who was it who said "if you meet someone in power, ask them 5 things. What power do you have? How did you get that power? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how do we get rid of you?"

That still sounds like a pretty strong framework to adhere to if you ask me.

I'm more bothered about that than falling for the media hysteria about how "Corbyn will definitely bankrupt the country"

Except that it isn't media hysteria. Its arithmetic. We need a mixed market economy. Its the only system contrived up to now that enriches the majority. Yes in needs proper enforcement and management of the rules and protections but Macdonald, Momentum and Corbyn don't believe that. 

Their's is a different system, no matter how they mask it with populist promises that they cant keep without out killing the wealth creators and the dreams of those who strive. It always fails. History is littered with examples. 

 

[Stive Pesley]

9 minutes ago, maxjam said:

 

@StivePesley in endorsing Brexit shocker ?

 

Not that big a shocker really. I would have voted leave if I thought Tony Benn was going to be negotiating the process. I only voted remain because I foresaw what would happen if the Tories were in charge of it!

21 minutes ago, Uptherams said:

I've just viewed a clip of him from this morning, discussing how the members will decide the policy. Absolutely fantastic idea. This political party is going to break our dishonest political system.

Actually says a lot for the strength of the Labour party currently if Farage is nicking their best ideas. Will the Brexit party really renationalise the railways and the utilities if their members decide that's what they should do (which I strongly suspect they would)

[GboroRam]

22 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Not that big a shocker really. I would have voted leave if I thought Tony Benn was going to be negotiating the process. I only voted remain because I foresaw what would happen if the Tories were in charge of it!

Actually says a lot for the strength of the Labour party currently if Farage is nicking their best ideas. Will the Brexit party really renationalise the railways and the utilities if their members decide that's what they should do (which I strongly suspect they would)

I bet they listen to the members on a select list of issues. Hanging. Smoking in pubs. The license fee.

Nationalised railways? No chance. 

[Van der MoodHoover]

Having "the membership" decide stuff isn't especially radical. The Tory Membership are shortly to decide Theresa May's future, the Labour party membership put representatives into the conference which decides their manifesto.

There are practical issues and I will be interested to see how Nigel plays this out........will he advance the pure Brexit form of democracy with a series of votes on vaguely defined issues that are carried on a simple majority? eg "do the membership think we should have less immigration or have immigration controls"? ?

Yes, i can see this being an interesting experiment - didn't ever seem to end well for him with the UKIP lot....

[Uptherams]

1 hour ago, StivePesley said:

Not that big a shocker really. I would have voted leave if I thought Tony Benn was going to be negotiating the process. I only voted remain because I foresaw what would happen if the Tories were in charge of it!

Actually says a lot for the strength of the Labour party currently if Farage is nicking their best ideas. Will the Brexit party really renationalise the railways and the utilities if their members decide that's what they should do (which I strongly suspect they would)

He's got the idea off his friends in Italy. It's also not like the Labour party system at all. Individual voting power, non national executive system. Nothing but a person voting for themselves on an issue or policy and the majority being adopted. 

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, Uptherams said:

He's got the idea off his friends in Italy.

Ironically it will almost certainly end with Farage swinging from a lampost like Mussolini did - once they realise he's a charlatan.

[1of4]

12 hours ago, jono said:

Sure try and fix it but you don’t fix it with an antiquated bankrup ideology such as Corbyn and Macdonald advance. Theirs is impractical, illogical, doesn’t add up and would simply swap one elite for another - as has been proven in Russia, Venezuela and Nazi Germany. It’s bile ridden jealous dog poo without an element of honesty or arithmetic. And as a final nail it makes the state and the ideology more powerful than the individual. It’s loathsome from the ground up - it is very clever at masking it with populism and appealing to the mob. All these crude deologies from American Rednecks to Stalin .. all the same. Appeal to base instinct and find yourself in a different sort of chains 

 

How do you equate the ideas of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnall with the present Russia and Venezuela and more bizarrely Nazism?

[Van der MoodHoover]

20 hours ago, jono said:

Sure try and fix it but you don’t fix it with an antiquated bankrup ideology such as Corbyn and Macdonald advance. Theirs is impractical, illogical, doesn’t add up and would simply swap one elite for another - as has been proven in Russia, Venezuela and Nazi Germany. It’s bile ridden jealous dog poo without an element of honesty or arithmetic. And as a final nail it makes the state and the ideology more powerful than the individual. It’s loathsome from the ground up - it is very clever at masking it with populism and appealing to the mob. All these crude deologies from American Rednecks to Stalin .. all the same. Appeal to base instinct and find yourself in a different sort of chains 

 

Interesting article in this weeks Economist (hardly known as a leftie rag) which is showing that at the present - for the first time for a long while - the new political ideas are being though about on the left rather than the right.

Now, these are not at the stage of being developed enough to be actual policy, so they are not anything to do with Corbyn and Macdonnell yet, but having something to say apart from being vaguely against austerity would at least offer the potential for some real choice at the next general election.

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, HantsRam said:

Interesting article in this weeks Economist (hardly known as a leftie rag) which is showing that at the present - for the first time for a long while - the new political ideas are being though about on the left rather than the right.

It's not hard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48269171

Giving your employees a fair stake in your business is a no-brainer.

I guess if a business man wants to squirrel his money into a Cayman Isles bank account, rather than share it with those that got him to where he is, then at least that tells you what kind of person they are..

[jono]

2 hours ago, 1of4 said:

How do you equate the ideas of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnall with the present Russia and Venezuela and more bizarrely Nazism?

Simple. The basis that the state and the ideology is more important than the individual. And further that the Nazi Party was the National socialist Party 

extremes of politics left and right are all cut from the same cloth and I’ll gun for them at every opportunity .. Trump or Corbyn .. different colour but same base paint. 

[jono]

2 hours ago, StivePesley said:

It's not hard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48269171

Giving your employees a fair stake in your business is a no-brainer.

I guess if a business man wants to squirrel his money into a Cayman Isles bank account, rather than share it with those that got him to where he is, then at least that tells you what kind of person they are..

I’m all for profit sharing. It’s called incentive a good business practice but how much do you want to share or should you share ?

you risk, you want reward, you need to re invest. Profit sharing could be seen as reinvesting, but who’s buying the new machine. In the end it’s balance logic and common sense but who decides the proportions

[G STAR RAM]

On 12/05/2019 at 22:06, AndyinLiverpool said:

Don't forget - a man who claims to despise the political elite but who is so desperate to become one of them and be accepted by them that he has stood for election to Parliament on seven occasions in the last 25 years.

But also a man so principled that he has campaigned to lose his own position for the last 25 years.

[G STAR RAM]

On 12/05/2019 at 19:31, 1of4 said:

A party that will probably get a lot of votes in the European elections. Thus ennobling Farage to carry on with his lies.

What are his lies? Not saying he doesn't lie just interested what you think he says that are lies?

[AndyinLiverpool]

9 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

But also a man so principled that he has campaigned to lose his own position for the last 25 years.

What position has he held for 25 years?

[G STAR RAM]

5 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

What position has he held for 25 years?

Member of European parliament, 20 years not 25.

[AndyinLiverpool]

4 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Member of European parliament, 20 years not 25.

So principled he chose to be part of the thing he despises? Don't tell me - working to bring down the system from within.