The Burnham Years - Can the new(ish) broom sweep clean?

[revolution saint]

Anyone else think that when you come across someone constantly banging on about the left or the right that they're more obsessed with the tribal elements of politics than actual substance?

[Sir Ralph]

1 hour ago, revolution saint said:

Anyone else think that when you come across someone constantly banging on about the left or the right that they're more obsessed with the tribal elements of politics than actual substance?

Not really. Currently political decisions tend to be very much along the lines of traditional party values - ie left and right, hence why you get the comments. I think most people will support a policy, if they agree with it, regardless of party. For example I think illegal immigration Labour get a hard time in the context that the Tories were probably worse in dealing with it

Edited Friday at 09:27 by Sir Ralph

[Farmer Saint]

31 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

Not really. Currently political decisions tend to be very much along the lines of traditional party values - ie left and right, hence why you get the comments. I think most people will support a policy regardless of party. For example I think illegal immigration Labour get a hard time in the context that the Tories were probably worse in dealing with it

Well, you say that, but most income tax policies haven't changed for nearly 20 years, benefits haven't really changed significantly either. It's an odd one, but there is not much flexibility between Labour and Conservatives nowadays due to Brexit and a hugely hamstrung economy. The last time anyone tried to do anything big they crashed the economy.

What are the big differences in policy between left and right at the moment?

 

[LuckyNumber7]

46 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Well, you say that, but most income tax policies haven't changed for nearly 20 years, benefits haven't really changed significantly either. It's an odd one, but there is not much flexibility between Labour and Conservatives nowadays due to Brexit and a hugely hamstrung economy. The last time anyone tried to do anything big they crashed the economy.

What are the big differences in policy between left and right at the moment?

 

Yes agree, there isn't a great deal of difference really between Labour and Tories, which is why not much changes regardless of who is in power. And I think that's why more and more people are turning to the more 'extreme' parties on both the left and right.

[Sir Ralph]

3 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Yes agree, there isn't a great deal of difference really between Labour and Tories, which is why not much changes regardless of who is in power. And I think that's why more and more people are turning to the more 'extreme' parties on both the left and right.

This

[revolution saint]

20 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

This

I'm a little confused then.  You think "Currently political decisions tend to be very much along the lines of traditional party values - ie left and right,"
But you also think there's not much difference between labour and tory.

TBH I can't really be arsed, the whole left/right stuff bores the hell out of me and feels largely irrelevant.

[Osvaldorama]

7 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

I'm a little confused then.  You think "Currently political decisions tend to be very much along the lines of traditional party values - ie left and right,"
But you also think there's not much difference between labour and tory.

TBH I can't really be arsed, the whole left/right stuff bores the hell out of me and feels largely irrelevant.

Tories are left of centre.  
 

They pretended to be right of centre. 

[Farmer Saint]

42 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

This

So you're disagreeing with your previous statement then?

Edited Friday at 11:15 by Farmer Saint

[AlexLaw76]

[Osvaldorama]

[Osvaldorama]

[Sir Ralph]

11 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

So you're disagreeing with your previous statement then?

No I think the most recent version of the Tories and Labour are similar. Slight variations but I wouldn’t describe the last version of the tories as being to the right

[Farmer Saint]

28 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

No I think the most recent version of the Tories and Labour are similar. Slight variations but I wouldn’t describe the last version of the tories as being to the right

Ok, so considering you rate us Labour voters as socialists and lefties, do you agree that all Tory supporters are the same then?

[Sir Ralph]

17 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Ok, so considering you rate us Labour voters as socialists and lefties, do you agree that all Tory supporters are the same then?

That’s another gotcha question. The most recent version of the tories in government aren’t as bad as the labour government but they deteriorated in their adherence to conservative policies over time, hence why lots of Tory voters deserted them. By the time they left power they were unfortunately hooked on government spending and buying votes on this basis much like the current government. So no Tory voters aren’t socialist as ultimately they deserted them to closer they got to centre left policies. That’s why Badenoch is desperately trying to give the impression that the tories are returning to conservative roots to get their voters back

Edited Friday at 23:10 by Sir Ralph

[Farmer Saint]

20 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

That’s another gotcha question. The most recent version of the tories in government aren’t as bad as the labour government but they deteriorated in their adherence to conservative policies over time, hence why lots of Tory voters deserted them. By the time they left power they were unfortunately hooked on government spending and buying votes on this basis much like the current government. So no Tory voters aren’t socialist as ultimately they deserted them to closer they got to centre left policies. That’s why Badenoch is desperately trying to give the impression that the tories are returning to conservative roots to get their voters back

By imposing the same income taxes? Not sure her policies are that right? Still seem pretty similar to the Labour ones we've got now.

What would count as a right wing income tax policy in your opinion? No gotcha here, just interested to know what you count as a right wing tax policy, and what you think it would do for the country.

Edited Friday at 23:26 by Farmer Saint

[whelk]

20 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

Thanks for sharing - wonder where all the Reform twats would be without their oh so funny memes? Expect you want a govt hand out to help you out. Any ideas about why fuel prices are rising? Probably even your limited intellect should be able to work it out.

[badgerx16]

13 minutes ago, whelk said:

Thanks for sharing - wonder where all the Reform twats would be without their oh so funny memes? Expect you want a govt hand out to help you out. Any ideas about why fuel prices are rising? Probably even your limited intellect should be able to work it out.

Bloody Burnham; failing to persuade Ukraine to cave in to Russian aggression, and failing to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Fucking Marxist.

Edited Saturday at 09:22 by badgerx16

[Farmer Saint]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmglw0r21zexo

Again, as I've consistently said this year, we are doing better than people are being told we are. To have this growth with the background interest rates and costs is pretty good.

[Osvaldorama]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmglw0r21zexo

Again, as I've consistently said this year, we are doing better than people are being told we are. To have this growth with the background interest rates and costs is pretty good.

Absolutely fucking deluded 😂. 
 

£3 trillion in debt, bond yield at 6%, rampant food/energy inflation and the IMF telling us not to borrow more money and stop giving away free stuff.

 

Plus, makes me laugh that yesterday you were saying how Brexit is harmful yet today you’re claiming we are doing better than the EU. 

[Farmer Saint]

10 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

Absolutely fucking deluded 😂. 
 

£3 trillion in debt, bond yield at 6%, rampant food/energy inflation and the IMF telling us not to borrow more money and stop giving away free stuff.

 

Plus, makes me laugh that yesterday you were saying how Brexit is harmful yet today you’re claiming we are doing better than the EU. 

Where have I mentioned the EU? Bond yield is not good, I agree, but it's still not affecting the economy.

£3trillion debt is kind of irrelevant - it should always be done as a percentage of GDP:

 

G7 Country Government Debt (% of GDP)

Japan 214.49% – 236.66%

Italy 135.33% – 137.10%

United States 122.27% – 123.70%

France 113.11% – 115.60%

Canada 110.02%

United Kingdom 99.90%

Germany 63.50% – 63.89%

Edited 6 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[Osvaldorama]

25 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Where have I mentioned the EU? Bond yield is not good, I agree, but it's still not affecting the economy.

£3trillion debt is kind of irrelevant - it should always be done as a percentage of GDP:

 

G7 Country Government Debt (% of GDP)

Japan 214.49% – 236.66%

Italy 135.33% – 137.10%

United States 122.27% – 123.70%

France 113.11% – 115.60%

Canada 110.02%

United Kingdom 99.90%

Germany 63.50% – 63.89%

“Bond yields not affecting the economy” 

😂😂😂 add this to your growing portfolio of ever more ridiculous comments. 
 

Stop pretending that you have a clue what you’re talking about 

[Farmer Saint]

7 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

“Bond yields not affecting the economy” 

😂😂😂 add this to your growing portfolio of ever more ridiculous comments. 
 

Stop pretending that you have a clue what you’re talking about 

Sorry, I should have said it's not unduly affecting economic growth - I dumbed it down for you.

So do you think without the increase in bond yields we'd see Labour doing significantly better with it's economic growth then?

[Farmer Saint]

9 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

“Bond yields not affecting the economy” 

😂😂😂 add this to your growing portfolio of ever more ridiculous comments. 
 

Stop pretending that you have a clue what you’re talking about 

Also, where did I mention the EU...I'll wait for your answer on this one.

[Osvaldorama]

Labour came to power warning of a £22bn black hole.

Since then they have:

❌ Put taxes up by around £70bn
❌ Borrowed another £310bn

And now, after taking more of your money AND borrowing hundreds of billions more…

…there is apparently another £35bn black hole.

At what point do we admit the problem isn’t that Government doesn’t have enough money?

It’s that Government cannot control its spending.

You cannot tax your way to growth.

You cannot borrow your way out of overspending

[Gloucester Saint]

The Ukraine war, and subsequent additional Iran war by Kushner and Trump in parallel have shoved up the cost of borrowing from the pandemic years far beyond anything Sunak, Starmer, Hunt and Reeves did. Truss and Kwarteng poured petrol on it but it was still only a segment of the overall picture given Hunt cleared up all the IEA’s projectile vomit.

Austerity didn’t decrease the debt 2010-15, flattened growth, squashed public services, and will only push lower earners onto UC with more PSRB impact.

The welfare bill needs to come down, we all agree on that at least, which includes the triple lock. The economy isn’t doing badly in isolation but the wider indicators are 1970s-esque because of the two parallel wars, limited straits access, Houthi attacks on Saudi, and nervousness around global instability. Trump getting blocked in next month would help matters as Congress could pull them out of Kushner and Mad Ben’s war. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Osvaldorama]

32 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

The Ukraine war, and subsequent additional Iran war by Kushner and Trump in parallel have shoved up the cost of borrowing from the pandemic years far beyond anything Sunak, Starmer, Hunt and Reeves did. Truss and Kwarteng poured petrol on it but it was still only a segment of the overall picture given Hunt cleared up all the IEA’s projectile vomit.

Austerity didn’t decrease the debt 2010-15, flattened growth, squashed public services, and will only push lower earners onto UC with more PSRB impact.

The welfare bill needs to come down, we all agree on that at least, which includes the triple lock. The economy isn’t doing badly in isolation but the wider indicators are 1970s-esque because of the two parallel wars, limited straits access, Houthi attacks on Saudi, and nervousness around global instability. Trump getting blocked in next month would help matters as Congress could pull them out of Kushner and Mad Ben’s war. 

“The economy isn’t doing badly” is all a matter of perspective

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Osvaldorama

[Gloucester Saint]

‘In isolation’. Context. And just cut and pasting one metric of out of hundreds is GM territory. 

Gas prices and inflation are higher in the US than under Biden. EU, China and Japan also impacted significantly by the two wars in parallel. Again, context. And as multiple others have said, gold is a wildly mad comparator commodity to use. AI does need a lot of understanding of context to form a coherent perspective. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, Osvaldorama said:

Labour came to power warning of a £22bn black hole.

Since then they have:

❌ Put taxes up by around £70bn
❌ Borrowed another £310bn

And now, after taking more of your money AND borrowing hundreds of billions more…

…there is apparently another £35bn black hole.

At what point do we admit the problem isn’t that Government doesn’t have enough money?

It’s that Government cannot control its spending.

You cannot tax your way to growth.

You cannot borrow your way out of overspending

You not going to answer my questions then Osvaldo, again?

This week has not gone well for you on this forum has it? And that's a low bar to start from.

Edited 4 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[Sheaf Saint]

7 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

“The economy isn’t doing badly” is all a matter of perspective

 

Yes it is, depending on what particular dataset you cherry pick to support your argument. Especially a measure as unreliable as gold.

[Farmer Saint]

31 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

“The economy isn’t doing badly” is all a matter of perspective

 

Does this account for inflation of gold? The value of gold has outstripped wages massively over that timeframe.

Since 1995 UK wages have risen 150%, gold has risen 1200%.

Again, with no context everything you post means nothing.

Edited 4 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[Weston Super Saint]

2 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

“The economy isn’t doing badly” is all a matter of perspective

 

Who comes up with this shit so you simpletons can lap it up?

Measuring GDP against a commodity market is insane.

You may as well compare GDP to the price of corn flakes since 1960.

 

[badgerx16]

4 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Who comes up with this shit so you simpletons can lap it up?

Measuring GDP against a commodity market is insane.

You may as well compare GDP to the price of corn flakes since 1960.

 

The measure always was to count in Mars bars, before shrinkflation took hold.

[Gloucester Saint]

40 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

The measure always was to count in Mars bars, before shrinkflation took hold.

What Mondelez did to Toblerone is far worse though!