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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.

So it turns out Milliband declined a meeting with Pfizer as he was 'too busy' with the euro election campaign, despite saying that the takeover bid is of national importance.

Not surprising, Miliband is the worst kind of opportunist politician. There wasn't much pingback from the public so he no longer cares.

Edit: oh and he has been reported to the standards commission for failing to declare he received a donation from Astra.

loooooooooooooooool. seriously, how can mp's think they can get away with this kind of thing anymore.
 
Tbf, I can't imagine what he could really have said to Pfizer. The actual government can't really do much, let alone the leader of the opposition. Asking for the meeting was the populist bit. Not attending is probably just saving everyone's wasted time.
 
Presumably they'd have gone through how good the deal is for the uk and he would have called off the attacks on them easing through the deal.

Of course it's a terrible deal for the uk which needs to be blocked so you're right in that it was a waste of time
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Very true.

Other news, labour put out a poster today saying how much more we are all paying in VAT with pictures of fruit and veg at the front, forgetting of course that fruit and veg is except from VAT. Woops!
 
I don't think it should be blocked. Firstly, I Don't think it's reasonable to welcome foreign companies in with open arms but then block anything that suggests the opposite direction of globalisation. You can't have one-way globalisation. Secondly, it's not the government's possession to dictate to. They don't own it. People own the company, people that paid money for it. I don't think it's right that the people that they sell it to be restricted for "the greater good". In the illustrious words of Tony Stark, "You want my property? You can't have it." If the government wants pharma research jobs in the UK, they should set up their own company, not co-opt someone elses.
 

Walshicus

Member
I don't think it's right that the people that they sell it to be restricted for "the greater good".

I do, I mean isn't that one of the reasons for having a government? Capitalism and globalisation are just tools - we shouldn't be compelled to stances that don't benefit us.


That said, all pharmas should be nationalised or multinationalised anyway.
 
I do, I mean isn't that one of the reasons for having a government? Capitalism and globalisation are just tools - we shouldn't be compelled to stances that don't benefit us.

Nope, not when it involves other people's money and investment. It doesn't belong to the government. I don't think you need to be an ardent free market libertarian to think that the government shouldn't simply appropriate private property as and when it deems fit. I'd have less of a problem with a nationalised pharma industry than one that lets - indeed, encourages - private enterprise to invest their money and then narrowly defines the scope in which they can use that company post haste (importantly) because they've been successful.

As you say, capitalism is a tool, but that doesn't mean the rules should just be changed with the blowing on the wind. If they'd all gone into this with the knowledge that they couldn't sell to foreign investors without the government's say so - as is the case with the defence industry, for example - I'd have no problem. But that isn't the case here.
 
But if we had a nationalised pharmacutical industry - which I think would be a good idea personally - people would complain about unfair competiton to the private sector.
 
But if we had a nationalised pharmacutical industry - which I think would be a good idea personally - people would complain about unfair competiton to the private sector.

I daresay they would. But accusations - and the reality - of nationalisation is unfair competition to the private sector. If you're going to support nationalisation of a private industry, that unfairness is exactly what you're deciding to implement, presumably because the benefits it brings are superior to this.
 
Are they really giving HMRC powers to remove cash from bank accounts without a court order, that is pretty disgusting if true, they are bad at keeping data safe and a lot of the time tax a higher amount then you actually owe. Nothing good will come out of this, there is nothing wrong with the current system. Let us hope it doesn't go through
 
I daresay they would. But accusations - and the reality - of nationalisation is unfair competition to the private sector. If you're going to support nationalisation of a private industry, that unfairness is exactly what you're deciding to implement, presumably because the benefits it brings are superior to this.

Pretty much - I think it should be nationalised because curing diseases is a pretty counter-inutitive move for a pharmaceutical company.
I'm not suggesting every pharma company is sitting on the cure to disease x, but it doesn't really make sense for them to look for it even if they get hints to it in the course of their research.

Another issue is the high margins that their pallatives often command can leave people chosing between suffering & financial hardship (even with the NHS we have drugs that are useful that people can't get because the cost is so astronomical compared to the benefit). Were the industry nationalised, these could be sold at a very small profit - just enough to get back the R&D costs.

Are they really giving HMRC powers to remove cash from bank accounts without a court order, that is pretty disgusting if true, they are bad at keeping data safe and a lot of the time tax a higher amount then you actually owe. Nothing good will come out of this, there is nothing wrong with the current system. Let us hope it doesn't go through

Yeah, I doubt it will. The conservative comittee members are against it, and HMRC are, as you say, not good at this so there would be horrific mistakes - people unable to repay their mortgage or rent or what-have-you. Nice idea, but in practise it would be a nightmare.
 

pulsemyne

Member
Are they really giving HMRC powers to remove cash from bank accounts without a court order, that is pretty disgusting if true, they are bad at keeping data safe and a lot of the time tax a higher amount then you actually owe. Nothing good will come out of this, there is nothing wrong with the current system. Let us hope it doesn't go through

There is plenty wrong with the current system but this approach is moronic and open to horrible abuse. Data safety within government agencies is an utter joke. The government does need to go after tax dodgers but the way to do that is to make it impossible for tax loopholes etc to exist. Just look at the method amazon is using to pay just 0.99 percent tax on their uk earnings of 4.6 billion. That is really disgusting. It maybe technically legal but it's really taking the piss.
 

pulsemyne

Member
I daresay they would. But accusations - and the reality - of nationalisation is unfair competition to the private sector. If you're going to support nationalisation of a private industry, that unfairness is exactly what you're deciding to implement, presumably because the benefits it brings are superior to this.
The drug industry is extremely dodgy in so many ways. Massive profits which have been based on drugs that either don't work or feature horrible side effects. They care little for their customers and far more for the end profit because they know that there is an inexhaustible supply of people who need treatment. Now I'm not saying that they don;t make things that help people, of course they do, but some of their practices are disgusting. They also overcharge for drugs with unbelievable margins. Maybe they need the market to be a little unfair to them so they would offer better value to patients.
 
The drug industry is extremely dodgy in so many ways. Massive profits which have been based on drugs that either don't work or feature horrible side effects. They care little for their customers and far more for the end profit because they know that there is an inexhaustible supply of people who need treatment. Now I'm not saying that they don;t make things that help people, of course they do, but some of their practices are disgusting. They also overcharge for drugs with unbelievable margins. Maybe they need the market to be a little unfair to them so they would offer better value to patients.

Sure, but that's got as much to do with our current system of patents than anything else. It's a tricky business though, because no amount of nationalised competition will make the drugs that already exist any cheaper without that patent reform. But you need to balance the need for drug companies to a) see a return on their investment and b) (crucially, because I think this gets forgotten) make up for the losses on the research that didn't yield results - so a given pill or cocktail might have huge margins, but it might have to also pay back 10 other drugs that cost R&D money but that didn't make it to market. If you're going to reform the patent system, you also need to make sure it's still profitable, because whilst they might only care about profit, at the end of the day they only make that profit because they produce drugs that people want to buy because they're better than not having the drugs. It's a bit of a thin line to walk, and one that could have pretty awful results if it isn't done correctly.
 
I wonder if there is any rhyme or reason to political leafleting. Three people live in my house and I'm the only person that gets conservative news letters depite being staunchly on the left-wing of politics. How odd.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Anyone watch the Sunday politics this morning? Dougie Alexander got slaughtered and rightfully so, the PPB and VAT posters this week were disgraceful. He should have been ashamed on signing those off.
 
I wonder if there is any rhyme or reason to political leafleting. Three people live in my house and I'm the only person that gets conservative news letters depite being staunchly on the left-wing of politics. How odd.

So far we've received 3 UKIP and 2 BNP leaflets to my flat. Is my address some sort of a racist list, or have traditional parties given up on campaigning?
 

Walshicus

Member
So far we've received 3 UKIP and 2 BNP leaflets to my flat. Is my address some sort of a racist list, or have traditional parties given up on campaigning?

Just the one UKIP and conservative set of leaflets here. Tore them up and left them in a neat pile by the entrance, as did a few other people it seems.
 
I'm not sure how much use leafleting is full stop, really, but I guess it makes sense to target your "advertising" at people aren't already going to vote for you. I can't imagine the Tories bother doing much leafleting in Surrey.
 
Amazed that Margaret Hodge has been calling for Barlow's OBE to be taken away
Like how can she talk about ethics after Islington.

Actually I'm not amazed by that so much as the fact she's even still an MP.
 
I'm not sure how much use leafleting is full stop, really, but I guess it makes sense to target your "advertising" at people aren't already going to vote for you. I can't imagine the Tories bother doing much leafleting in Surrey.

Can't speak for all of Surrey but we got UKIP and Conservative leaflets, no BNP or Labour though. There's a few people with UKIP leaflets in their windows, a friend of mine lives in a fairly wealthy area and its the same story there. The Conservative leaflets we got have a special section about why only the Conservatives can do what UKIP promises.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Tower hamlets here and I have had ukip, Tory and labour leaflets. Odd thing is the ukip and Tory ones were actually addressed to me, would love to know how they got my name and address as I've never signed up to anything relating to either of them. Labour one was a generic one addressed to no one.
 

Zaph

Member
Got a BNP leaflet through. The very first item on their bullet-pointed to-do list? "Ban the burka".

You can't make this shit up.
 

kmag

Member
Tower hamlets here and I have had ukip, Tory and labour leaflets. Odd thing is the ukip and Tory ones were actually addressed to me, would love to know how they got my name and address as I've never signed up to anything relating to either of them. Labour one was a generic one addressed to no one.

Political parties have full access to the full electoral roll (including the people who ticked the privacy box) under regulation 105 and 106 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 . So if you're signed up to vote at your current address they'll get it from there.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Political parties have full access to the full electoral roll (including the people who ticked the privacy box) under regulation 105 and 106 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 . So if you're signed up to vote at your current address they'll get it from there.

Thanks. Odd that UKIP and the tories adtually adressed to me and Labour didn't, cost thing maybe?
 
Could be, labour have often skirted bankruptcy as a party, and it's gotten particularly bad ever since brown isolated Levy and Miliband isolated business in general.

We really need "no business/no union" publically paid party support though.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Video of Alexander on Sunday politics yesterday in cased anyone missed it. Was a shocking performance, Andrew Neil later confirmed Ed Balls and shadow treasury minister said the £450 figure was over year, not over the life of the parliament so Alexander was either stupid or lying.


Labour denies election broadcast is negative and …: http://youtu.be/HT9URbUJb80
 
Video of Alexander on Sunday politics yesterday in cased anyone missed it. Was a shocking performance, Andrew Neil later confirmed Ed Balls and shadow treasury minister said the £450 figure was over year, not over the life of the parliament so Alexander was either stupid or lying.


Labour denies election broadcast is negative and …: http://youtu.be/HT9URbUJb80

Poor Dougie. You can see he obviously doesn't believe a word he's saying.

Edit: Not the critique of the bedroom tax - he obviously believes that. But the "fact based" stuff.
 
Could be, labour have often skirted bankruptcy as a party, and it's gotten particularly bad ever since brown isolated Levy and Miliband isolated business in general.

We really need "no business/no union" publically paid party support though.

It's better than Tony Blair acting at the whim of a few billionaire New Labour donors.
 
Interesting fact: Latest Yougov puts Labour ahead by 7, yet Ashcroft's first (presumably they'll run up til the election) weekly poll from last week puts the Tories in the lead by 2 points.

POLLS POLLS POLLS.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
I think truth is somewhere in between, neck and neck which for an opposition at this stage is pretty disastrous. The euro polls seem to be narrowing as well, if ukip win and Tories poll close to labour there could be some calls for Milliband's head...
 
The gold standard poll, ICM/Guardian, has a Conservative lead of +2 which follows the Ashcroft poll with a similar result. Labour = fucked. Unbelievable to have the governing party in the lead a year out. By reckoning the result will be Con 37, Lab 30, Lib 14-18. Tory most seats. Short by 12-15. Overall majority if Scotland goes for independence, ironically something made more likely with a Tory poll lead.
 
Video of Alexander on Sunday politics yesterday in cased anyone missed it. Was a shocking performance, Andrew Neil later confirmed Ed Balls and shadow treasury minister said the £450 figure was over year, not over the life of the parliament so Alexander was either stupid or lying.


Labour denies election broadcast is negative and …: http://youtu.be/HT9URbUJb80

The vat stuff is par for the course, but having that "disabled can't fight back" line given Cameron's circumstances is pretty disgusting. I get they may not have twigged it when they were making it, but at least take the chance to apologise when it's offered to you
 

Nicktendo86

Member
The vat stuff is par for the course, but having that "disabled can't fight back" line given Cameron's circumstances is pretty disgusting. I get they may not have twigged it when they were making it, but at least take the chance to apologise when it's offered to you
That icm/guardian poll also has Tories in the lead on euro voting intensions. This next two weeks could be a disaster for Milliband.
 

Volotaire

Member
Video of Alexander on Sunday politics yesterday in cased anyone missed it. Was a shocking performance, Andrew Neil later confirmed Ed Balls and shadow treasury minister said the £450 figure was over year, not over the life of the parliament so Alexander was either stupid or lying.


Labour denies election broadcast is negative and …: http://youtu.be/HT9URbUJb80

The labour campaign is the epitome of sound bite and popularity politics. It is despicable that they could not even draw up policies in a succinct or on laymen's terms throughout the video. Also bringing up this class war themes in the video is just heinous. Why would any knowledgeable person vote for this party in respect to the EU elections?
 

8bit

Knows the Score
I think Labour need some serious soul searching about who they really are, their once certain Scotland vote is on a knife edge with their useless leader and Ed isn't a world stage participant. He's got the look of someone that dropped a sandwich in a puddle and has no idea what to do now.
 
The gold standard poll, ICM/Guardian, has a Conservative lead of +2 which follows the Ashcroft poll with a similar result. Labour = fucked. Unbelievable to have the governing party in the lead a year out. By reckoning the result will be Con 37, Lab 30, Lib 14-18. Tory most seats. Short by 12-15. Overall majority if Scotland goes for independence, ironically something made more likely with a Tory poll lead.

you really think a seven point lead is in the cards. I really don't know how much worse Labour could do, and I don't see then changing up.
 

Nicktendo86

Member
Yougov poll this morning has labour lead of 1%, so we are back down to figures of last week. I think it is safe to say now that 7% lead on Sunday was an abnormality.
 

JonnyBrad

Member
you really think a seven point lead is in the cards. I really don't know how much worse Labour could do, and I don't see then changing up.

Incumbent Governments nearly always strengthen in the last year leading up to an election. For Labour to not even be in the lead at the mo is a crisis.
 
The true "crossover" point is at about 4+ to the Tories due to the boundary shite. And of course this is a very broad brush, assuming a uniform "swing".

This is bad for Labour, but the Cons can't be too complacent at all - they're still polling below their voteshare in 2010. But you end up in rather a similar situation to the XBone vs PS4 - sure, the XBox could come back and do very well. The PS3 managed it, after all. But in terms of predictions, if you had to guess, what reason is there to actually think it will (as opposed to keeping open the option that it might)? I can't think of anything on the horizon that Labour has to pull out of its sleeve. They can't have another Clause 4 moment, because they don't have any more unelectable goats to sacrifice. The only way I can see Labour achieving a higher vote share (As opposed to higher seat count, which I think they could limp over with, though I still think a Tory minority is more likely) is if they have a monster campaign and the Tories have a bunch of personal scandals.

Also, one of the polls recently had the Tories top of a European Parliament voting intention poll. That's a first and, I assume, an anomaly. All the rest have had them coming in third.
 
The true "crossover" point is at about 4+ to the Tories due to the boundary shite. And of course this is a very broad brush, assuming a uniform "swing".

This is bad for Labour, but the Cons can't be too complacent at all - they're still polling below their voteshare in 2010. But you end up in rather a similar situation to the XBone vs PS4 - sure, the XBox could come back and do very well. The PS3 managed it, after all. But in terms of predictions, if you had to guess, what reason is there to actually think it will (as opposed to keeping open the option that it might)? I can't think of anything on the horizon that Labour has to pull out of its sleeve. They can't have another Clause 4 moment, because they don't have any more unelectable goats to sacrifice. The only way I can see Labour achieving a higher vote share (As opposed to higher seat count, which I think they could limp over with, though I still think a Tory minority is more likely) is if they have a monster campaign and the Tories have a bunch of personal scandals.

Also, one of the polls recently had the Tories top of a European Parliament voting intention poll. That's a first and, I assume, an anomaly. All the rest have had them coming in third.

Ed Miliband?
 

Nicktendo86

Member
I saw a poll a few days ago Cyclops that had the Tories two points behind Labour in the euro polls after being about 8 points behind for ages so I think they have narrowed.

If, and that is a big if, the Tories beat labour at the Euros it would be a disaster.
 
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