Austerity is basically antithetical to left wing belief though. Just because some neo-liberal Labour politicians supported it, doesn’t make it a left wing idea. And if it’s not a left wing idea, then there’s no centre point between left and right in this example.
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Austerity is basically antithetical to left wing belief though. Just because some neo-liberal Labour politicians supported it, doesn’t make it a left wing idea. And if it’s not a left wing idea, then there’s no centre point between left and right in this example.
You're assuming that Labour and the Conservative party are objectively left and right wing and equally far along the same scale and are always going to propose policies that conform exactly to their position on the same scale. The reality is they're right and left wing relative to one and another and how far they fall along that scale depends on the policies they're proposing to enact. The real reality is that the left/right wing dichotomy is arbitrary and a far left party can propose right wing policies and vice/versa.
Adopting your definitions would make the whole argument redundant anyway. If you're going to argue that the Labour Party is always left wing simply because they historically have been and any policy proposed by Labour is left wing because Labour are then argument that Corbyn has shifted the party further to the left or Blair closer to the the centre surely can not exist.
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But that effectively involves shifting the definition of left-wing and right-wing every time what's generally the economic/political norms shift. Which clearly isn't an ideal definition insofar as it should surely be acknowledged that the party in the Blair years wasn't as left-wing as they'd been beforehand.
It's more about the voters than the parties.
It does, don't it?
Perceptions of where the 'centre-ground' lies are bound to change over time I would think.
Eh? That's one of the strangest things I've ever read.
- They're hugely anti-immigration, cracking down on people who have lived here for decades.
- They're hugely anti government spending, enacting the 8th year of government spending cuts.
- They're becoming more authoritarian, creating a UK firewall to stop people watching legal pornographic material.
- They're cutting ever more social benefits, taking away millions of disabled people's benefits
- and the list goes on and on
Now what you've described as trying to win back voters... on student loans and housing. What exactly are you talking about? Can you name the policy?
The Tory led coalition were the ones who raised the University cost from £3,290 to up to £9k. The Tories are indeed encouraging house building, but it's not government led, and there is a huge shortage of social housing and low cost housing. The government say they are trying combat that, but what are they doping about it?
So... what are you talking about?
Low corporation tax in NL has allowed me to work for some of the biggest multi nationals in the world over 20 years, my personal income tax is double I would have to pay in the uk.
One of the strangest things you've ever read? Lol ok. The conservatives are a centre party, you could classify them as centre right if you want but there's nothing wrong with the rest of what I've said. They're more centre than the republicans in the US for example and probably at the same spectrum as the democrats. None of the policies you've listed remotely make them right wing so i don't where the faux outrage is suddenly coming from. Those policies may seem bad when you phrase them in a subjective manner as you've done, but they can easily be written as:
- They're committed to bring down immigration to a manageable level, which is to under 100k net per year. That's not anti-immigration. Not sure what where you're getting the cracking down on people who've lived here for decades bit from, unless it's a couple of outlier examples, for everyone else there's citizenship after x amount of years (10 years for non-EU and for EU people they have a right to remain here).
- You could write that as they're committed to balancing the books, so that we no longer post a trade deficit year after year and increase out our total debt. Sometimes you have to cut to do that if you're not earning enough. That's what happens in business (and yes, I know the running of the country's not a business, but that doesn't exempt you from being financially responsible). Ditto on the cuts on benefits.
- If I'm not mistaken the porn law's not been enacted yet, only consulted on, and even if it were put in place the worst case is you call up and get your ISP to allow porn. Not great but hardly something to justifying terms like authoritarian around, especially when it's coming from the perspective of child safety. If you want authoritarian, go look at what Xi Jinping just passed through law in China.
So yeah, nothing actually majorly right wing there, nowhere near enough to justify the sort of surprise you're giving. On student loans and housing, I'm referring to the last 2-3 weeks in the news that May's given speeches on. 1) The student loan review that started last month and will last up to a year to see how to reform the loans. The justification for this is less them giving a crap but more being surprised at how many young people flocked to labour in the election. I'll be shocked if they don't at least cut the interest rate in the reform since there's little else they can do at this point (they've already frozen the rises), and if they're feeling brave they'll lower the loan size. They might cop out and make their sole change the ability to get 2 year degrees, but I'll be surprised if that's the only change. And yes I know the Tories increased to £9k, I started uni the first year it was enacted and left with £40k+ debt, but clearly I'm talking about current policies, not from 8 years ago.
2) On housing just this week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43279177
I'm not necessarily arguing the changes, because I'm annoyed at both Labour and the Tories policies (or lack of) on housing, but I was referring more to their acknowledgement of needing reform on housing planning / policies and trying to bring those in.
Content? I've named the policies.
That time of the year when the taxman tells you what he spent your pennies on. I guess I'll be £114 richer next year
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It's not a few outliers, it's happening more and more often. This weeks example in the news comes from this guy, but there are more and more others.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...die-home-office-commonwealth?CMP=share_btn_wa
Look at the bolded. You literally have no idea what you are talking about do you?
Regardless, I support a small state and a balanced budget, but opposing social programs is certainly a "right wing" position.
It's more authoritarian than the status quo, and it's the status quo you have to start from a basis of. You can have left wing authoritarian (communism) and even centralist authoritarian, but as a liberal and a libertarian, I oppose both.
What you don't seem to realise is that the conservatives have been screwing university students over every year since 2010, even following the hike How? Well I will let Martin Lewis take over from here:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/n...rossly-unfair-retrospective-student-loan-hike
This is *finally* set to change, it should go up to £25k in April, and from there on rise with inflation, like it was meant to to begin with. So why didn't they just do it to start with? Well, I think they underestimated how much the government was going to be on the hook for with student loans not being repaid. Now I applaud the government for finally beginning to reverse their earlier decisions, but their handling of the situation has been a debacle.
Again, there is barely anything here, just correcting what wasn't being done properly in the first place. Encouraging private house building isn't a left wing idea anyway,
You are gushing over the conservative government correcting two earlier mistakes; the first where they effed up their student loan and tuition fee changes, and the second where enough housing wasn't being sold off at low cost... which is what they had already asked for to begin with.
And yes. Of course the current conservative government is left of the republican party. Thankfully, the UK isn't america, and the conservatives and consistently shifting the UK to the right.
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That time of the year when the taxman tells you what he spent your pennies on. I guess I'll be £114 richer next year
<a href=""><img src="https://i.imgur.com/epmHrZi.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
I'm guessing that's a new feature of the tax summary?That time of the year when the taxman tells you what he spent your pennies on. I guess I'll be £114 richer next year
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£55,000 wage (assuming nothing into your pension) and £115 goes to the EU. What a country
That time of the year when the taxman tells you what he spent your pennies on. I guess I'll be £114 richer next year
<a href=""><img src="https://i.imgur.com/epmHrZi.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
No, not actually. Since some of that is coming back (most of it actually) it’s way less than 114£
That time of the year when the taxman tells you what he spent your pennies on. I guess I'll be £114 richer next year
The bottom lines the killer , maybe they're working their way up the list, what's next to be cut?
That £115 will take into account our rebate (I think). But nothing else.. i.e. no farming subsidies, etc.
That right there, boys and girls, is how we got Brexit. People connecting trade balance to national debt.
He has already supplied the information I required to make my evaluation.
People are sick of experts. Once we are out of the EU, we can put tariffs up on the import of European goods, so our trade deficit should go down and we'll have more money to spend on services like the NHS.
Worryingly for the UK is that it sounds like the government actually believe this too.
No, apparently not. Can't find last year's, but apparently I paid £116 to the EU in 2013-14 and £99 in 2014-15. My wage has hardly gone in up in three years, although I have been doing less freelance on the side
Pretty close, but yeah, some pension contributions and benefits in kind. EU ROBBING ME BLIND!£55,000 wage (assuming nothing into your pension) and £115 goes to the EU. What a country
Downgrade the NHS further so more poor and elderly die would cut the biggest two expenses of welfare and health.
I'd love to know what the £261 "environment" cost isNo, apparently not. Can't find last year's, but apparently I paid £116 to the EU in 2013-14 and £99 in 2014-15. My wage has hardly gone in up in three years, although I have been doing less freelance on the side
Pretty close, but yeah, some pension contributions and benefits in kind. EU ROBBING ME BLIND!
Gove's expenses
Wind turbine subsidies and the like? Flood defences?
Christ, I meant to write budget deficit, not trade deficit, but mis-wrote, probably as trade deficits/surplus' have been in the news so much over the past week.
@fcbforever I'd appreciate if you'd stop quoting me, the second time you've come into this thread with one line wummery & generalisations that don't add to the discussion at all but simply mean to offend. Your posts are the equivalent of me replying to you and just saying 'Stick to thinking investment banking is mostly just betting'.
Your argument is essentially that any positive changes from Conservatives on housing and student loans is null, simply because they hadn't made those changes earlier / are negated by earlier policies. Which isn't an invalid point, but the whole point of the bit of my first post you quoted (& bolded) is that now they're trying to make changes that can be seen as moving to the left with regards to student loans (the gov taking on more of the burden of them).
I accept though that building more houses isn't really a left wing idea. But then literally the next line in my first post that you qouted is 'Not sure if you can classify those on a political spectrum as centre', and you have to read that in the wider context of the post - arguing that labour are moving more to the left with plans to nationalise industries etc and that the conservatives aren't really moving more to the right.
Anyhow to reply to some specifics -
You're seriously clutching at straws if you think a couple of examples of people never having taken the effort to obtain British citizenship, and then wanting an expensive procedure on the NHS / benefits etc = the conservatives being anti-immigration. 1) It's the Home Office, not Theresa May and Amber Rudd huddled around a table. 2) I've had a relative deported because they stayed past their visa but not long enough to obtain citizenship. It's tough. Don't want to get deported? Obtain citizenship when you're eligible as it's one of the most fundamental things to have sorted out. Though I'd say it's fairly likely there's reasonable solution to the case in that article as their should be a history of tax contributions, but leading on to the next point - 3) The Guardians ad naseum in that article and another linked in that of 'The Home Office did this, said that' is funny. The ironic part is that the journalistic tactics are akin to what crap like the daily mail put out, but instead of muddying the authority they'll target minorities.
Arguing that a law blocking porn that to my knowledge hasn't been enacted, is authoritarian is again very much reaching. Also aren't liberterians generally against social welfare & things like the state paying for education? Or does the liberalist part allow for mixing and matching ideologies?
The government has the right to make changes to the terms of student loans, because you accept those terms when you take out the loan. It might not be ideal, but it is what it is. Personally I don't think lower thresholds are a bad thing, I'm in favour of people actually paying back their loans. What I think is a better system for the majority than just waiting 30 years for your loans to be wiped off is to have loans increase with inflation or have no interest rate rather than inflation + up to 3%, and that'd help encourage people actually pay back their loans.
Not gushing, merely pointing out policies as you requested. I didn't vote Tory in the last election. But I didn't vote Labour either.
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I have a hard time believing that, but nevermind.
Please do all you like, I‘m happy to expand your lacking knowledge on banking, which seems to steem from some weird mixture of American pre-1999 knowledge and Hollywood movies.
Bizarre why anyone thinks Labour is left wing anyway. It is under Corbyn but that's been a dramatic change since the New Labour years where Labour was central to slightly leaning right. Hence why the Blair fanboys hated Corbyn.
The problem with that analogy of course is that if a government cuts its spending, its income will be adversely impacted. That is why austerity largely hasnt worked.
This strikes me as particularly troubling, especially in light of Trump's apparent decision to back Russia over us on the nerve agent thing. We can't really trust/rely on the US at the moment.
Because govt can't keep itself out of the operations if there are votes to be had. If the govt ran the electricity biz, there would be political pressure, say, to intervene to subsidise various groups at the expense of others. Or pressure to avoid job losses or fare rises near elections. Or whatever.
Profits are ultimately how a commercial org decides to what to do, and what to not do/how to allocate investment. I remember when we had loads of state run industries in this country and their service was shite.
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The law of the market works for some products but not for everything. Some must be state owned or state regulated. Energy related for example. Is too strategic and only a few operators that if they decide as oligopoly, for example the gas, jack the price up when you are going to that long weekend. Lets say 200% price. Is very simpliestic
The same with water service. And of course healthcare when the company would look more for the profit than the health of the patient. The state must be there or owning or regulating very strictly. The law of the market is not for every good and service if you are not a robot
giving a platform to racist, hate spreading cnuts.
That's all Brexit is, lies, division & hate.
This won't even make headline news in the UK. A quick search on BBC website shows there's no article about it.
edit: Reading a bit more about her she's a right wing journalist. Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage are leaping to her defense.
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The name Tommy Robinson at the bottom of the video was enough to tip me off.
A little bit snow flaky though to campaign for harder border controls and then bitch and whine when those same border controls are applied to you.
Whilst I think all Western countries should be aiming to be 100% secular asap, I also think people who incite hate should be punished. Handing out those leaflets was a twatty thing to do and she was rightfully told to feck right off when you consider that and some of her previous actions.*
Well, the UK seemingly has no problem controlling it's borders from outside of the white EU it appears.
*The vile Canadian woman actually did the following:
In May 2017, Southern took part in an attempt organized by the identitarian group Génération identitare to block the passage of an NGO ship, the Aquarius (co-owned by SOS Mediterranée and Doctors without Borders), which was leaving Sicily to start a search-and-rescue mission for ship-wrecked migrants off the shores of Northern Africa. Claiming that the goal of the activists "was to stop an empty boat from going down to Libya and filling up with illegal migrants", Southern was briefly detained by the Italian Coast Guard. NGO ships often rescue migrants and refugees, who disembark from Libyan shores on unsafe makeshift rafts, and bring them to Sicily. [33][34]With regard to her actions, Southern stated that "if the politicians won’t stop the boats, we’ll stop the boats."[10]
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