The Theresa May General Election thread (edited)

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

Rudd's looking more credible than May .. truth is all the major party's are scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

If the Conservatives lost and jettisoned May, then they'd have to ask themselves which direction to go. May's gone for an anti-free market non-Thatcherite position. If she fails to pull that off and loses, then the party would rightly ask whether it was time to go fully Thatcherite again. Now that might be the right policy for them if a more socialist Labour get into Downing Street. 

If they did go down that route, I don't think Rudd would be the woman. Too prominent in the Remain camp. 

ICBM

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

paulads

ICBM said:

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

I never thought I'd ever LOL at ICBM 

Fretwired

ICBM said:

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

No. The long term future for the Tories is bleak. The younger generation is poorer and more dependent on the state. When I left higher education I walked straight into a well-paid job, debt free and was able to buy a house after saving for a deposit after a couple of years. That's all gone - the UK will become more socialist over time as people depend on benefits such as working tax credits, child benefit and fewer people will pay income tax.

No party is promoting improvements in productivity and wealth generation as the electorate aren't interested.

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

Still a way to go, and the polls are still reacting to Dementia Tax own-goal (IMHO), after the coming weekend it will become a lot clearer one way or another

I don't think it's Dementia Tax ... it affects too few people.

It's her core supporters - the over 65s !!!!!!!

Heartfeltdawn

ICBM said:

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

His credibility with the public is lower than it has been. All the bumbling used to be endearing: now it simply looks like incompetence. This image would haunt him as leader. 

http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/1019912/article_update_img.jpg

More crucially than the public though would be to ask how much credibility he has within his own party. The Remainers will see him as a turncoat shitbag and his critics will see him as a man who has been forced out of jobs for lying at least twice. 

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

No party is promoting improvements in productivity and wealth generation as the electorate aren't interested.

I don't think it's about a lack of interest. They simply wouldn't believe them. 

Jalapeno

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

No party is promoting improvements in productivity and wealth generation as the electorate aren't interested.

I don't think it's about a lack of interest. They simply wouldn't believe them. 

That's because it's not a slam dunk.  It'll be at least a decade of hard graft to even begin to realise anything.

JezWynd

ICBM said:

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

I can't believe you wrote that. I don't think his stock has ever been lower in the eyes of the public.

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

Still a way to go, and the polls are still reacting to Dementia Tax own-goal (IMHO), after the coming weekend it will become a lot clearer one way or another

I don't think it's Dementia Tax ... it affects too few people.

It's her core supporters - the over 65s !!!!!!!

A lot of older people don't own homes, those that do can easily take measures to hand their homes over to their kids or use equity release to get cash out and spend it. I know lots of people in this position and the policy didn't really bother them - May has underestimated issues like the NHS and education. Older people use the NHS more and see their grand children in large classes and under pressure in SATS tests and lumbered with university fees. The Dementia Tax could be good for some uni students as their grandparents may decide to use some cash to pay off their fees rather than give it to the government.

May looks serious and intense but lacks a vision for the future. Corbyn is chirpy and offers a change to austerity ... it's a choice between more of the same with May, or a change of direction with Corbyn.

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

No party is promoting improvements in productivity and wealth generation as the electorate aren't interested.

I don't think it's about a lack of interest. They simply wouldn't believe them. 

That's because it's not a slam dunk.  It'll be at least a decade of hard graft to even begin to realise anything.

But its about selling a vision for the future - young people want well-paid jobs and the same level of prosperity their parents and grandparents had. We need an industrial strategy that exploits things we invent, stops our best companies getting sold and making it easier to raise funds to start a business. This needs to be backed by a fit for purpose world class education system with a focus on engineering and science. There are a lot of early wins that could improve things .... even Uncle Joe Stalin had a rolling five year industrial plan.

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

No party is promoting improvements in productivity and wealth generation as the electorate aren't interested.

I don't think it's about a lack of interest. They simply wouldn't believe them. 

That's because it's not a slam dunk.  It'll be at least a decade of hard graft to even begin to realise anything.

But its about selling a vision for the future - young people want well-paid jobs and the same level of prosperity their parents and grandparents had. We need an industrial strategy that exploits things we invent, stops our best companies getting sold and making it easier to raise funds to start a business. This needs to be backed by a fit for purpose world class education system with a focus on engineering and science. There are a lot of early wins that could improve things .... even Uncle Joe Stalin had a rolling five year industrial plan.

But Soviet 5yr plans are a by-word for failure - they never delivered

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

But its about selling a vision for the future - young people want well-paid jobs and the same level of prosperity their parents and grandparents had. We need an industrial strategy that exploits things we invent, stops our best companies getting sold and making it easier to raise funds to start a business. This needs to be backed by a fit for purpose world class education system with a focus on engineering and science. There are a lot of early wins that could improve things .... even Uncle Joe Stalin had a rolling five year industrial plan.

With the elephant in the room being the increasing levels of automation and mechanisation and AI that will reduce the jobs market hugely whilst the population keeps on expanding and getting older. That's the biggest thing that will lead to more people relying on the state to my mind. 

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

But Soviet 5yr plans are a by-word for failure - they never delivered

I think you'll find they did. A lot of people died along the way but Russia went from being backward to being an industrial giant.

Cirrus

Infinity wisdoms for @Heartfeltdawn . 

My concern is that if society and gov't moves to the right over the coming decades, automation and the final death of the traditional jobs market will create a massive underclass of people unable to ever find work, while, and this is the proper marxist insanity bit but bear with me - the people who own the hardware and intellectual property rights to the automation that replaces most jobs will get to live in a post-scarcity wonderland.

Or, welfare state provides a safety net, a universal basic income, and everyone has a chance to weather the coming storm and move forward into broad, sunlit uplands

Either way, the traditional capitalist market economy paradigm that civilisation adopted in the 16th C, and that has seen humanity develop so quickly since then, is going to come to an end when the link between work and productivity is severed. And whatever method societies use to navigate the coming stormy waters, there are going to be pissed off people. I just like the one that doesn't guarantee utter poverty for millions.

ICBM

JezWynd said:

ICBM said:

Do you think Boris would decide that the time is now right? He bottled it before, but he's one of the few Tories with any credibility with the public.

I can't believe you wrote that. I don't think his stock has ever been lower in the eyes of the public.

Possibly not. However, not everyone has forgotten that he did a tolerably good job as Mayor of London… or at least didn't screw up that much.

Note also that I said he's one of the few Tories with *any* credibility - not that he has a lot. The rest simply have less, or none.

fields5069

ICBM said:

Also, for those who are worried about Corbyn and his cronies, I would say this… he's now 68. He may well not even serve the full parliament, but I think is more likely to hand over to someone younger and more pragmatic after three or four years when he's achieved what he set out to do - rescuing the Labour Party from Blair's legacy. When he's gone, Abbott and McDonnell will swiftly follow - they're not liked by the bulk of the party any more than he is, and they don't have the same following among the members.

He's a "life politician" though, it's not a job for him or a springboard to huge financial gain. My last MP, hopeful to be re-elected for probably his last stint on June 8th, is now 82.

ICBM

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

But Soviet 5yr plans are a by-word for failure - they never delivered

I think you'll find they did. A lot of people died along the way but Russia went from being backward to being an industrial giant.

The USSR under Stalin went from an essentially feudal-type peasant economy to an industrial superpower with nuclear weapons and space rockets in only thirty years, while suffering invasion by and then defeating the most powerful military nation in Europe or possibly in the world along the way.

Not happy times for a lot of the population, but you can't argue that it wasn't probably the greatest leap forward of any nation in history. Of course it didn't work out quite so well in the long run...

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

But its about selling a vision for the future - young people want well-paid jobs and the same level of prosperity their parents and grandparents had. We need an industrial strategy that exploits things we invent, stops our best companies getting sold and making it easier to raise funds to start a business. This needs to be backed by a fit for purpose world class education system with a focus on engineering and science. There are a lot of early wins that could improve things .... even Uncle Joe Stalin had a rolling five year industrial plan.

With the elephant in the room being the increasing levels of automation and mechanisation and AI that will reduce the jobs market hugely whilst the population keeps on expanding and getting older. That's the biggest thing that will lead to more people relying on the state to my mind. 

True - that's why we need to up-skill to create companies that can generate the wealth we need - design the robots and the AI. Automation is not in itself a bad thing so long as it brings prosperity. People can work fewer hours - jobs will be created in the leisure industries and there is still demand for traditional products made by hand from clothes, beer, food, cars, furniture and instruments.

Axe_meister

Having visited a communist state (east Germany before the wall came down) the average person lived on the poverty line. Housing was shit at a standard far below our worst council houses and these where people with good jobs