The Theresa May General Election thread (edited)

hungrymark

I've never been particularly bothered about u-turns. In a lot of cases I actually admire it when they're made. In no other sphere would you expect somebody to carry on with a decision when it was clear that it was a bad or unpopular one, yet in politics they get pilloried if they don't. Bonkers. The willingness to compromise and adapt are surely what you'd want in a leader.

ICBM

hungrymark said:

The willingness to compromise and adapt are surely what you'd want in a leader.

Yes, but the willingness to completely reverse a policy you've just been vigorously defending as the right thing when faced with an uncomfortable opinion poll… isn't.

VimFuego

hungrymark said:

I've never been particularly bothered about u-turns. In a lot of cases I actually admire it when they're made. In no other sphere would you expect somebody to carry on with a decision when it was clear that it was a bad or unpopular one, yet in politics they get pilloried if they don't. Bonkers. The willingness to compromise and adapt are surely what you'd want in a leader.

agree, though I do wish they wouldn't try to make such a virtue of being strong and resolute (U turn if you want, the lady's not for turning etc), then U turning. Take the recent debacle over NI for self employed as a recent example.

Sporky

Fretwired said:

the odd smoked kipper is nice though ...

Increasingly hard to get rizzlas big enough though...

capo4th

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

May is the right woman for the job. Corbyn is a dinosaur funded by trade union idiots who continually grind the country to a halt.

People need to stop voting like their parents did 20-30 years ago and make the right decision.

Oh puh-lease.  When was the last time a strike caused the country to grind to a halt?  It sounds more like you're harking back 30 years.

The constant "strong and stable leadership" mantra is getting on my tits already, and we've still got weeks of this shit to wade through yet.

Mate with all due respect you live in Norfolk and probably drive an old Volvo estate or a tractor.

In the capital city where things happen we rely on public transport to move around. 

The recent strikes cost the country millions and it was it was all backed by Jeremy and his union cronies.

We need strong and stable leadership not some fuckin joker wearing a red tie with a beard.

As you were .....

DarnWeight

capo4th said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

May is the right woman for the job. Corbyn is a dinosaur funded by trade union idiots who continually grind the country to a halt.

People need to stop voting like their parents did 20-30 years ago and make the right decision.

Oh puh-lease.  When was the last time a strike caused the country to grind to a halt?  It sounds more like you're harking back 30 years.

The constant "strong and stable leadership" mantra is getting on my tits already, and we've still got weeks of this shit to wade through yet.

Mate with all due respect you live in Norfolk and probably drive an old Volvo estate or a tractor.

In the capital city where things happen we rely on public transport to move around. 

The recent strikes cost the country millions and it was it was all backed by Jeremy and his union cronies.

We need strong and stable leadership not some fuckin joker wearing a red tie with a beard.

As you were .....

Mate, with absolutely no respect, you can fuck off and make lazy value judgements about me on your own time, and not here.

I'll debate your politics all day, but it ends there, so behave.

Drew_TNBD

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

May is the right woman for the job. Corbyn is a dinosaur funded by trade union idiots who continually grind the country to a halt.

People need to stop voting like their parents did 20-30 years ago and make the right decision.

Oh puh-lease.  When was the last time a strike caused the country to grind to a halt?  It sounds more like you're harking back 30 years.

The constant "strong and stable leadership" mantra is getting on my tits already, and we've still got weeks of this shit to wade through yet.

Mate with all due respect you live in Norfolk and probably drive an old Volvo estate or a tractor.

In the capital city where things happen we rely on public transport to move around. 

The recent strikes cost the country millions and it was it was all backed by Jeremy and his union cronies.

We need strong and stable leadership not some fuckin joker wearing a red tie with a beard.

As you were .....

Mate, with absolutely no respect, you can fuck off and make lazy value judgements about me on your own time, and not here.

I'll debate your politics all day, but it ends there, so behave.

Well... you do live in Norfolk and you're absolutely free to tell us what car you drive... but his point about London is correct.

DarnWeight

Drew_TNBD said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

May is the right woman for the job. Corbyn is a dinosaur funded by trade union idiots who continually grind the country to a halt.

People need to stop voting like their parents did 20-30 years ago and make the right decision.

Oh puh-lease.  When was the last time a strike caused the country to grind to a halt?  It sounds more like you're harking back 30 years.

The constant "strong and stable leadership" mantra is getting on my tits already, and we've still got weeks of this shit to wade through yet.

Mate with all due respect you live in Norfolk and probably drive an old Volvo estate or a tractor.

In the capital city where things happen we rely on public transport to move around. 

The recent strikes cost the country millions and it was it was all backed by Jeremy and his union cronies.

We need strong and stable leadership not some fuckin joker wearing a red tie with a beard.

As you were .....

Mate, with absolutely no respect, you can fuck off and make lazy value judgements about me on your own time, and not here.

I'll debate your politics all day, but it ends there, so behave.

Well... you do live in Norfolk and you're absolutely free to tell us what car you drive... but his point about London is correct.

His point about London was qualified with "where things happen".  So, I take it from that, that nothing else happens anywhere?  Nothing worthwhile, obviously.  And please explain, how does what car I drive have a bearing on my initial observation?.  That we haven't had a national strike which has caused the country to grind to a halt for going on 30 years?  It has no bearing, other than being an attempt to denigrate.

Moe_Zambeek

Mugwump...it's almost like the word was invented for Corbyn 

capo4th

DarnWeight said:

Drew_TNBD said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

DarnWeight said:

capo4th said:

May is the right woman for the job. Corbyn is a dinosaur funded by trade union idiots who continually grind the country to a halt.

People need to stop voting like their parents did 20-30 years ago and make the right decision.

Oh puh-lease.  When was the last time a strike caused the country to grind to a halt?  It sounds more like you're harking back 30 years.

The constant "strong and stable leadership" mantra is getting on my tits already, and we've still got weeks of this shit to wade through yet.

Mate with all due respect you live in Norfolk and probably drive an old Volvo estate or a tractor.

In the capital city where things happen we rely on public transport to move around. 

The recent strikes cost the country millions and it was it was all backed by Jeremy and his union cronies.

We need strong and stable leadership not some fuckin joker wearing a red tie with a beard.

As you were .....

Mate, with absolutely no respect, you can fuck off and make lazy value judgements about me on your own time, and not here.

I'll debate your politics all day, but it ends there, so behave.

Well... you do live in Norfolk and you're absolutely free to tell us what car you drive... but his point about London is correct.

His point about London was qualified with "where things happen".  So, I take it from that, that nothing else happens anywhere?  Nothing worthwhile, obviously.  And please explain, how does what car I drive have a bearing on my initial observation?.  That we haven't had a national strike which has caused the country to grind to a halt for going on 30 years?  It has no bearing, other than being an attempt to denigrate.

Come on post a pic of your fine chariot and we can put this to bed ! If you do drive a tractor unfortunately I have no interest in farm machinery pics. 

Fyi London is where things happen and is the centre of the universe and for Corbyn to back days on end of commuter misery shows what a complete ming he is. London bankrolls the rest of the UK these union idiot politicians need to be driven into the ground.

Corbyn is a mutton-headed old mugwump he is a threat to vegetarians everywhere!

His union connections highlight how detached he is from reality and is a puppet for the clowns in charge of the unions - a very dangerous man!  

ICBM

Moe_Zambeek said:

Mugwump...it's almost like the word was invented for Corbyn 

Perhaps he needs childish name-calling to disguise the fact that if you read the rest of what he's criticised Corbyn for, it's almost all either a misrepresentation, or Corbyn is right.

Fretwired

ICBM said:

Moe_Zambeek said:

Mugwump...it's almost like the word was invented for Corbyn 

Perhaps he needs childish name-calling to disguise the fact that if you read the rest of what he's criticised Corbyn for, it's almost all either a misrepresentation, or Corbyn is right.

What he says may have more credibility were he backed by more of his MPs.

• Raising taxes on people who earn £75K or more - are these people really rich?
  
• Raising corporation tax - more firms like Nestle will leave the UK
• Allowing the Bank of England to print money to build houses - economically illiterate
• A National Education Service (like the NHS) to run schools - just another layer of cost and bureaucracy
• Renationalising the railways and power companies - how will he fund it?
• Rent controls - OK in principle but in London it could destroy the rental sector
• Scrapping tuition fees - great idea, but how would he fund it?
• Scrap Trident - I agree with this as we can't afford to replace it

He then has a series of pledges:

One: create a million good quality jobs across our regions and nations, and guarantee a decent job for all. By investing £500 billion in infrastructure and industry, backed up by a publicly-owned National Investment Bank and regional banks, we will build a high skilled, high tech, low carbon economy to ensure that no one and no community is left behind - where is he going to get £500 billion from?

Two: build over a million new homes in five years, with at least half a million council homes, through our public investment strategy. This can't be done as there are not enough skilled trades people to build them, nor factories to make the bricks. Pie in the sky.

Three: give people stronger employment rights from day one in a job, end exploitative zero hours contracts, and create new sectoral collective bargaining rights. OK but it will hamper pledge one - companies will think hard before employing people and look to tech or outsourced services abroad.

Four: end health service privatisation and bring services into a secure, publicly-provided NHS. How will he get out of the costly PFI contracts?

Five: build a new National Education Service, open to all throughout their lives. We will ensure there is universal childcare to give all children a good start in life, allowing greater sharing of caring responsibilities and removing barriers to women participating in the labour market. We will bring about the progressive restoration of free education for all; and guarantee quality apprenticeships and adult skills training. OK, but it sounds expensive to me - how will he fund it? Where will the skilled teachers come from to teach apprenticeships? My local college can't find them.

Six: build a progressive tax system so that wealth and the highest earners are fairly taxed, and shrink the gap between the highest and lowest paid. The super rich will leave so as usual it will be the middle class who'll feel the pain of excessive taxes on income and property.



It's just a wish list - much of it you'd say OK it sounds good but he never explains how it will be funded. I'd love an Aston Martin, a few Custom Shop Strats a boutique amp and a small country estate, but at the moment I can't afford any of them.

DarnWeight

I'm just going to address my original argument from this point on, namely the assertion that latterday industrial action is causing the country to "grind to a halt", is bollocks.  The following chart was produced by the ONS.



Minor fluctuations in a baseline rate that barely register over the last 25 years.

Just to be clear, I won't be responding to any further personal insults or insinuation on this thread.

Fretwired

@DarnWeight - it could be down to age. You are right that there isn't national industrial action any more. I remember revising for exams in the early 1970s by candle light as the power workers were on strike yet again. And back then if the miners came out other unions would support them. However, there are people on here who weren't alive at the time and didn't live through the three day week or the constant disputes in the car plants.

If you live in London public transport is essential so the endless strikes on the tube network cause a lot of pain for people - they blame the unions for their misery.

Heartfeltdawn

ICBM said:

Moe_Zambeek said:

Mugwump...it's almost like the word was invented for Corbyn 

Perhaps he needs childish name-calling to disguise the fact that if you read the rest of what he's criticised Corbyn for, it's almost all either a misrepresentation, or Corbyn is right.

The bizarre spectacle of a privately educated Islington resident calling another privately educated Islington resident names. 

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

It's just a wish list - much of it you'd say OK it sounds good but he never explains how it will be funded. I'd love an Aston Martin, a few Custom Shop Strats a boutique amp and a small country estate, but at the moment I can't afford any of them.

And that's the problem, no substance. A manifesto on those lines will cheer the unions who back him and galvanize the young ones who helped him achieve his leadership victories, but the middle class left wing crowd look at all of those points and react with incredulity. 

Sporky

Fretwired said:

If you live in London public transport is essential so the endless strikes on the tube network cause a lot of pain for people - they blame the unions for their misery.

I don't live in London but I'm there a couple of times a week for work. I don't remember many tube strikes recently, and when there were I just left home earlier and had a nice walk around London. 

DarnWeight

Fretwired said:

@DarnWeight - it could be down to age. You are right that there isn't national industrial action any more. I remember revising for exams in the early 1970s by candle light as the power workers were on strike yet again. And back then if the miners came out other unions would support them. However, there are people on here who weren't alive at the time and didn't live through the three day week or the constant disputes in the car plants.

If you live in London public transport is essential so the endless strikes on the tube network cause a lot of pain for people - they blame the unions for their misery.

Oh, I agree.  Strikes happen, and can impact hugely on peoples' day-to-day lives.  Most unions worth their salt go through pretty extensive periods of discussion and negotiation before calling strike action, and as a result striking is generally considered as the last option when all other avenues have been exhausted.  We have extremely tough trade union laws in this country (see the Trade Union Act 2016), so you can be pretty much assured nowadays that if a strike has been called, it will have to have had solid backing from a majority of union members.

The fact is, the unions aren't the force they were, and we have fewer strikes.  To claim otherwise is untrue.

Snap

The further we get into this election, the more useless Corbyn and Co appear. The Labour Party's naivety when it comes to Brexit negotiations is particularly telling.

This notion that May is steering us to a "hard" exit: a stupid thing to say.

If you've ever done negotiation, there is a way to go about it, and one of the things you don't do is show your cards early, and start by saying you will give ground, without any reciprocity. So, what does Labour do? Immediately say all EU nationals in the UK get guaranteed rights from day one, and we hope to get a good deal for britons abroad. Naive.

What a sensible person would say would be - OK Brussells, give UK expats in the EU rights, we will do the same.

May is merely taking an opening position - you need us, we need you, but we aren't going to roll over and give you what you want regardless.

Corbyn is an idiot, he really is. He just spouts ideologies, not practicalities. I don;t think he has a clue about the real world, he's spent too much time as an activist, wrapped up in his own student protest world.

Snap

And don't get me started on Tim Farron. Kinell, now he is a dick.
What is galling, is that here in Hallam, Nick Clegg is MP. His majority was cut from 20k (ahead of labour) to 2k last time. The rest of the city has labour seats, and a labour council. Has been for years, and tbh, Sheffield lags way behind its peer cities, can't say that the council or the MPs have done a lot for the city really.

So, it looks like I will have to vote Liberal, just to keep a small beacon of sense in the people's republic of south yorkshire.

There is no way I could bring myself to vote for a party run by the bunch of useless berks that comprise the shadow cabinet.

Emily Thornberry - FFS, Diane Abbott, jesus more than wept.