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

J

jimbor

Banned
kitch9 said:
Wages will naturally increase as competition in the workplace increases, we are seeing the start of that cycle as employment is growing but at the moment the supply of labour is still quite good. Once the available supply of labour diminishes prices will rise.

This is the main reason why I think that having manic unfettered immigration of cheap unskilled labour (or scroungers) like we have now cannot possibly be a good thing.
Click to expand...
What a cock.
 
K

kitch9

Banned
jimbor said:
What a cock.
Click to expand...

Huff and puff all you like but there's entire industries out there which show immigrants how to game our system. Just so you know, I'm all for well balanced and targeted immigration, our country needs it and cannot prosper in the future without it. What we have currently is a mess and causing problems. I may have a stronger view than most though, as I'm from up north and my town is having real issues with large numbers of eastern European migrants arriving all at once. The Roma community in particular is causing real problems.

I'm a firm believer in simple supply and demand economics. Increase the supply of something the price goes down and vice versa.

If you live in the leafy suburbs of Hampshire you might wonder what the problem is, I can assure you entire communities are struggling to cope.
 
I

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
CyclopsRock said:
Obviously the Lib Dems supporters are pretty quiet. Dead men tell no talllllleeeeessss!
Click to expand...

Personally I'm quiet because I've got a new baby around the house. I'm quite disillusioned by the backlash against the Lib Dems (how dare they not implement all their policies as a junior coalition member?) but it mostly reflects badly on their supporters rather than the party itself.
 
Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
I agree, their supporters have not come out looking well really. Thing that pisses me off most about the lib dems though is their complete and utter inability to discipline people.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
iapetus said:
Personally I'm quiet because I've got a new baby around the house. I'm quite disillusioned by the backlash against the Lib Dems (how dare they not implement all their policies as a junior coalition member?) but it mostly reflects badly on their supporters rather than the party itself.
Click to expand...

I agree; Like Phisheep has mentioned before, I have more respect for them now than I did 4 years ago, but the leadership have made some incredibly... unusual decisions re: personnel.

Nick - It's up almost 14% today. Yesterday it's market capitalisation was £54.1bn. Right now it's £61.7bn, a rise of £7.6bn. 80% (not 70 as I previously said) is owned by the taxpayer, so overnight we just gained £6bn - theoretically. Obviously that doesn't mean anything until we sell them, and a) we can't do that without impacting the share price itself, so large is the government's ownership and b) it's currently trading lower than we bought them for, but not by much! Unfortunately there's still been no dividend.
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
Nicktendo86 said:
Interesting Dan Hodges article today, saying basically Labour have conceded 2015 and are working towards 2020 with their policy group which met the other day. Agreed to match the Tories' spending cuts, finally entering the fiscal real world. Only 5 years late.
Click to expand...

This sounds sensible on one hand.

Yet if they are expecting their party members to flog themselves to death in an election campaign that they are essentially throwing away, that will not go down well.
 
Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
We all know Dan Hodges is not Milband's biggest fan, but his blog today is spot on.

Dan Hodges said:
And where does Labour’s leader think that cynicism comes from? “A lot of it comes to the difference people see between what matters in their life and what seems to matter in modern politics. They believe we value posturing more than principle. Good photos or soundbites more than a decent policy. Image more than ideas.”
He said that. He actually stood up and condemned the obsession with “good photos”.
On Monday we saw what Ed Miliband’s real priorities are. The House of Commons assembled for a statement about the crisis in Gaza and the destruction of MH17. Ed Miliband wasn’t there. Parliament was debating what to do in response to ten British citizens, and 288 of their fellow human beings, being blown out of a cloudless European sky. And he was 3,500 miles pursuing a 25-minute photo opportunity with Barack Obama.
And then he comes home, says a few words about Gaza for the Six O’Clock News, and lectures people on the cynicism of politicians who obsess about photo opportunities and soundbites. Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke?
Click to expand...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...-is-the-most-cynical-thing-ive-seen-in-years/
 
8

8bit

Knows the Score
BtZ4wV3CUAAy4Dp.jpg


Anyway, who comes post Miliband? Balls? Watson?
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
Yup, master of hypocrisy.

I will never vote for the labour party while he remains leader.
Click to expand...

I am of the same opinion - however my view of their hypocrisy doesnt end at Labour's leader. Most of the shadow cabinet is from the Blair/Brown era - and I simply cannot vote for them given the last Labour reign.
 
M

Maledict

Member
Yvette cooper is the only decent one from the more experienced ranks, but she has the huge issue of her husband to cope with, and balls is an utterly detestable human being who has incredibly low ratings with voters.

Chuka would be my bet - the 'Obama' narrative writes itself, and he is very good in front of a camera and would definitely offer a more solid alternative to the conservatives.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
Dan27 said:
I am of the same opinion - however my view of their hypocrisy doesnt end at Labour's leader. Most of the shadow cabinet is from the Blair/Brown era - and I simply cannot vote for them given the last Labour reign.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, alexander/balls/cooper were all in the brown inner circle as well, none of these people should ever be anywhere near running a government again if they didn't have the stones to speak out when brown screwed the poor via income tax for the incredibly important reason of wrong footing george osbourne. I don't think I'll ever get over what an evil, self serving policy the 10p tax rate scrapping was

Maledict said:
Yvette cooper is the only decent one from the more experienced ranks, but she has the huge issue of her husband to cope with, and balls is an utterly detestable human being who has incredibly low ratings with voters.

Chuka would be my bet - the 'Obama' narrative writes itself, and he is very good in front of a camera and would definitely offer a more solid alternative to the conservatives.
Click to expand...

Disagree on cooper (see above). Chuka has never struck me as particularly effective to be honest. First time I saw him on question time was up against a half-asleep ken clarke who ran rings around him. That in itself isn't too bad(since ken clarke is one of the best mp's ever), but chuka was awfully tetchy and whiny in defeat, which is bad, and I've seen that repeated on other occasions over the past few years whenever he's challenged on a half baked policy. That's not a good trait to have.

I think when Labour lose the election they should go with someone a bit more to the left then ed has been portraying himself as being(I have no idea where ed truly stands politically as he sways with the political wind), someone far more down to earth then him, and someone not too scared to actually make the big policy decisions. Ed ran away from Jon Cruddas' scheme to re-nationalise the rail network, which I think would have been a big winner - we've all suffered from intermittently crap franchise owners over the last twenty five years as the government plays pass the parcel and looks to the lowest bidder instead of the best(how the hell did serco lose the DLR contract???).

I have no idea who this would be in labour. They stand to gain quite a few seats next year, so they really need to make sure some of the new intake is competent.
 
V

Volotaire

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
we've got all those debates to look forward to where the public get to see ed miliband don't forget
Click to expand...

Although those debates are entertaining, and at least inform some of the non participating public about policy, it goes into nowhere enough detail about the individual policies. It's more soundbite politics and empty policy initiatives.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
Volotaire said:
Although those debates are entertaining, and at least inform some of the non participating public about policy, it goes into nowhere enough detail about the individual policies. It's more soundbite politics and empty policy initiatives.
Click to expand...

agreed, but they really helped the lib dems last time, and I suspect they'll really hurt labour this time. We've seen on PMQ's that ed miliband cannot go off script.
 
V

Volotaire

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
agreed, but they really helped the lib dems last time, and I suspect they'll really hurt labour this time. We've seen on PMQ's that ed miliband cannot go off script.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the media will agree to UKIP participating in the election debates. They're still leading on the Lib Dems and have a good chance of going into coalition with the Tories. I could see Sky news definitely agreeing with this, given their political stance.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
Volotaire said:
I wonder if the media will agree to UKIP participating in the election debates. They're still leading on the Lib Dems and have a good chance of going into coalition with the Tories. I could see Sky news definitely agreeing with this, given their political stance.
Click to expand...

The main parties will do everything they can to stop that I suspect. While UKIP is a one man band, farage is very, very good at the kind of demagogue oratory that would make a lot of people take notice, taking tory votes in the south and labour votes in the north(assuming ukip tweak their policies to appeal to old labour voters as has been suggested).
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
Nicktendo86 said:
Interesting Dan Hodges article today, saying basically Labour have conceded 2015 and are working towards 2020 with their policy group which met the other day. Agreed to match the Tories' spending cuts, finally entering the fiscal real world. Only 5 years late.

Lol
http://order-order.com/2014/07/25/miliband-dont-vote-for-me/
Click to expand...

That's fucking stupid, Labour's still leading in the polls and are on track to win a solid majority.

Labour has the right policies to win an election, now they just need the right vision.
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
I think there will be a lot of voters in the UKIP percentage of those polls who will be up for grab. I think this is the key to the next election.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Well, the actual Sunday Times article in question states...:

ED MILIBAND, who last week confronted his failure to connect with voters, has turned to one of the world’s leading experts on autism to help boost his “political empathy”.

Simon Baron-Cohen, a Cambridge academic and the cousin of Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen, has emerged as a surprise inspiration for the Labour leader’s speech on Friday in which he admitted to having an image problem.

Miliband accepted that he resembled the cartoon character Wallace and could not win a “photo-op contest” against David Cameron. But he made seven references to “empathy”, describing it as one of the “most underrated virtues” in politics.

Aides say that after several conversations with Baron-Cohen, who directs the autism research centre at Cambridge, Miliband chose to depict himself as the sort of leader who listens to others.
Click to expand...

In other news, our office dog is back! He wasn't around on for the second half of last weekend, I got worried.
 
K

kitch9

Banned
CyclopsRock said:
Well, the actual Sunday Times article in question states...:



In other news, our office dog is back! He wasn't around on for the second half of last weekend, I got worried.
Click to expand...

Ed wants to be a leader who listens.....

"Ed, I think you should raise taxes!"

"Ed, I think you should lower taxes!"

Hmmm, now what?
 
S

StealthGoblin

Banned
Friend of mine is running for a seat in parliament and he's a labour guy. Went to school with him. Used to play rugby, fiercely intelligent and not bad looking as politicians go.

He's currently a councillor for Basildon and has met with members of Labours top brass. I think he'll go places.

He did a lot of public speaking while we were at Secondary School and Sixth Form. He's a genuine man of the people as he comes from a relatively poor background and area.

Given the drain in talent and image problem Labour has, I really think he'll be someone someday.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
Hopefully his order of priorities will be

Self<Party<Country

and not

Self>Party>Country

like a lot of the government and miliband's entire inner circle.
 
S

StealthGoblin

Banned
Sir_Crocodile said:
Hopefully his order of priorities will be

Self<Party<Country

and not

Self>Party>Country

like a lot of the government and miliband's entire inner circle.
Click to expand...

I know in his heart he is a man of the people. The problem with politics these days is that you need to promote 'self' just to get to the top table to be able to make change.

It'll be interesting to see if things happen for him.
 
S

StealthGoblin

Banned
zomgbbqftw said:
Has he had a career outside of politics? If not then it won't help Labour or the country.
Click to expand...

We are relatively young (25) but from what I gather he worked for the BBC, Sky News and various radio shows.

Just to be clear, I'm not promoting him. I'm an undecided voter who is largely disillusioned with politics. These days I find the drama of politics far more interesting than actual policy. I like to imagine Malcolm Tucker and the bullshit that happened on The Thick of it to be a true daily occurrence.

When I see someone doing something selfless with some conviction that is to the betterment of the country I'll be there but at the moment, nope.

I just don't feel represented.

This is me:

Teacher (who profoundly disagrees with the rate of change to education we've seen)
Atheist
Empiricist
25 years old
Cohabiting with the woman of my dreams.
From a poor background
Degree in pharmacology (who despises the secretary for health)
Looking to buy my first house and start a family.

So despite coming from a poor background and working my arse off, doing a job where I am giving back to society - I constantly feel like shite.
 
W

Walshicus

Member
Dan27 said:
The initial recovery is complete - economy is above pre-recession levels.
Click to expand...

No it isn't. GDP (inflation adjusted?) might be, but the population has grown significantly since 2008 so GDP per capita (inflation adjusted) is still significantly shy.

Working at the moment, but did a quick search which led here: http://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukgdp/
Code: 
Year		Real GDP per capita (2008 prices)
2000		£20,129
2001		£20,683
2002		£21,159
2003		£21,819
2004		£22,355
2005		£22,673
2006		£23,130
2007		£23,774
2008		£23,354
2009		£22,190
2010		£22,440
2011		£22,490
2012		£22,377
2013		£22,577

In real terms we were in 2005 territory last year. Even with 3% real terms growth per capita (which is unlikely) that still keeps us in 2006 territory.

Make no mistake, this has been a phantom decade in terms of real growth. I can't imagine how much worse that looks if you limit the view to even the lower 8 deciles!
 
Q

QuicheFontaine

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
I think when Labour lose the election they should go with someone a bit more to the left then ed has been portraying himself as being(I have no idea where ed truly stands politically as he sways with the political wind), someone far more down to earth then him, and someone not too scared to actually make the big policy decisions. Ed ran away from Jon Cruddas' scheme to re-nationalise the rail network, which I think would have been a big winner - we've all suffered from intermittently crap franchise owners over the last twenty five years as the government plays pass the parcel and looks to the lowest bidder instead of the best(how the hell did serco lose the DLR contract???).

I have no idea who this would be in labour. They stand to gain quite a few seats next year, so they really need to make sure some of the new intake is competent.
Click to expand...

On this note, I'd love to see someone who had an actual job in the real world prior to entering politics. Careerist politicians always seem out of touch to me.

Edit:

zomgbbqftw said:
Has he had a career outside of politics? If not then it won't help Labour or the country.
Click to expand...

Posted before I saw this but yeah. Going from uni to being a Researcher or some such to being an MP seems to be the career path these days. I don't think it does anyone any good.
 
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