General Election 2015

[Henry_17]

Sold.

[numbers]

MrBen Wrote:

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> Where to start Henry old

> chap.......underpopulated, beautiful , the last

> true wilderness on the planet, mineral rich, an

> attractive exchange rate and one of the highest

> standards of living outside of Sweden. Excellent

> fly fishing, positive attitude to entrepreneurs,

> Albertan steak. Albertan women. Bears. Quiet

> roads. Uncrowded ski slopes. An incredible social

> health care system and solid and underlying

> constitutional principles born of Scottish

> sensibilities and fairness.

>

> And best of all.....they're not American.

'mineral rich'. Never had that as top of my list of reasons for moving to a new country/continent before. I suppose it depends on what industry you are in. Did you forget canoes? Thought Canada was famous for those too? Also, poutine...!

[MrBen]

All that oil helps pay for the healthcare numbers.. ..though it does mean it's exposed to the global barrel rate and the odd slump as a result.

Canadian politics make our lot look exciting however.

[numbers]

Canadian politics must be dreary MrBen, otherwise you've sold Canada to the EDF!

[Bic Basher]

Discovered this interesting video on the BBC website, featuring the main candidates from the Dulwich/W Norwood seat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30900584

[david_carnell]

Today's Telegraph splash has me all kinds of hulk-angry. I link to it only for information purposes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11507586/General-Election-2015-Labour-threatens-Britains-recovery-say-100-business-chiefs.html

Now, there are so many things wrong with this I'm not even sure where to start.

1) This is a non-story. Big business and the people running/owning them support the Conservative Party. Well, blow me down with a feather and call me Shirley. How the feck is that a story. A 10 year old should be able to tell you that. Of course they do. They always have. That's who the party is meant to represent. If they were supporting Labour, that would be a story. If trade union leaders were backing Cameron, that would be a story. But this?!

2) Some of these people are already Conservatives, party members or donors. Karen Brady is pictured. She's a Tory life peer in the House of Lords. And now she's going to support the Tories at the election?! Wowzers. What next? "Miliband votes for himself in Doncaster constituency - the arrogance of the man."???

3) It's not even true. Look at levels of foreign investment in the UK since 1997. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/foreign-direct-investment The idea that this government has made Britain "open for business" is clearly BS. Levels of investment are at a modern low.

4) Is there anything more pathetic than a bunch of people who have more money than they could ever need or spend bleating about paying their fair share of tax while heading up companies who avoid tax, pay minimum wage (that they would have opposed in the first place) and have workers on zero-hour contracts. When was the last time you heard normal people whining like this about paying tax?

As Tim Burgess has said:

"When should we share the letter from all the rich people we have made richer at the expense of everyone else?"

"April Fools Day?"

"Cool."

It'd be funny except it's true.

[miga]

.

[david_carnell]

I'd be inclined to agree to an extent but I don't think you can hold the son accountable for the sins of the father.

And I'd disagree that these are lame attempts.

[david_carnell]

Meanwhile the Centre for Macroeconomic Studies destroys the coalition myth about...well....everything.

http://cfmsurvey.org/surveys/importance-elections-uk-economic-activity

From Robert Peston:

The Centre for Macroeconomics, which groups leading economists from Cambridge University, LSE, University College London (UCL), the Bank of England and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), polled what it calls its 50 experts on whether the ?austerity policies of the coalition government have had a positive effect on aggregate economic activity (employment and GDP) in the UK?.

Its result was a decisive no.

Two-thirds of the 33 economists who responded disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposition that austerity had been good for the UK.

Now to be clear, this is not a scientifically robust poll of those who know best. But nor is the Telegraph?s letter - and those those who took part in the economists? survey are no less distinguished in their field than the business signatories.

Among those who disagreed strongly that austerity had been a good thing, Oxford University?s Simon Wren-Lewis (never shy to express an opinion) asked if the question was ?a joke?, adding that ?the only interesting question is how much GDP has been lost as a result of austerity? (which he thinks could be as much as 10% of national income).

John Van Reenen of the LSE, who also disagreed with austerity, said ?UK GDP is about 15% below where we would have expected on pre-crisis trends... Premature austerity has damaged UK welfare and, as I and others argued at the time, delaying consolidation would have left the UK in a much stronger position than it is today.?

[Loz]

Have you just woken up from a long coma, DC? All the papers are biased and print crap in the run up to elections.

The one that made me laugh yesterday was the terrible Guardian "Reality Check" page, which attempts to emulate the excellent Channel 4 one. They took on the Tories claim they'd created 1000 jobs a day. An unnecessarily long thesis involving a lot of graphs finally, grudgingly, concluded that the claim was probably correct, but then threw in the entirely unrelated "but there are lots of food banks too". Just can't help themselves.

[david_carnell]

No Loz - but this stuff is dominating the news coverage today. And it's just my little diatribe on it.

[david_carnell]

No one seems to care or be interested in this today so I'll make this my last point.

Of the 100 people on the list:

3 Tory Peers

5 Tory Advisors

12 Tory Donors

1 employee of the Telegraph

Rooney Anand - head of Greene King brewery who concocted a highly articificial tax avoidance scheme

Richard Joseph - a convicted fraudster

Lord Bamford - originally withdrew from peerage due to allegations abouthis tax affairs

And that's a cursory search done by me and some folk on twitter.

Never mind the links to HSBC which led to the Telegraph's chief political commentator quitting because of editorial bias. This is the shoddiest front page I've seen in an election campaign.

[maxxi]

I found (almost) the most annoying thing about it to be the tv reporters' reaction - asking any and every Labour candidate/representative "Where's your 100 names then?" - lazy bastards.

[Loz]

david_carnell Wrote:

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> No one seems to care or be interested in this

> today so I'll make this my last point.

>

> Of the 100 people on the list:

>

> 3 Tory Peers

> 5 Tory Advisors

> 12 Tory Donors

> 1 employee of the Telegraph

> Rooney Anand - head of Greene King brewery who

> concocted a highly articificial tax avoidance

> scheme

> Richard Joseph - a convicted fraudster

> Lord Bamford - originally withdrew from peerage due to allegations abouthis tax affairs

You missed the non-exec board member of the Guardian Media Group that signed it!

I don't know why you are getting so het up about this. 100 businessmen supporting the Tories is about as exciting as 100 senior union members supporting Labour.

[david_carnell]

EXACTLY! And I'm not seeing that on any front page of a newspaper or leading on the Today programme or dictate today's political agenda.

[Louisa]

Where's the voice of the Labour Party's highest profile business supporter whilst all this is going on then? Alan Sugar? Seems very quiet, is he still not the biggest fan of the two Ed's?

Louisa.

[DulwichFox]

DulwichMum is the leader of The Absolutely Fabulous Party and I am the Sheriff.. under a Twitter pseudonym

(until she tells me otherwise)

My main responsibility is maintaining the Ducking Stool. Currently in storage .

Awaiting my instructions.. Long list of prospective candidates.

DulwichFox

[Otta]

david_carnell Wrote:

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> No one seems to care or be interested in this

> today so I'll make this my last point.

I was interested, I just didn't feel I had anything valuable to say.

Loz Wrote:

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> Have you just woken up from a long coma, DC? All

> the papers are biased and print crap in the run up

> to elections.

>

> The one that made me laugh yesterday was the

> terrible Guardian "Reality Check" page, which

> attempts to emulate the excellent Channel 4 one.

> They took on the Tories claim they'd created 1000

> jobs a day. An unnecessarily long thesis

> involving a lot of graphs finally, grudgingly,

> concluded that the claim was probably correct, but

> then threw in the entirely unrelated "but there

> are lots of food banks too". Just can't help

> themselves.

It's not entirely unrelated though. The fact is that jobs are being created which are barely worth having, and so food banks are needed. It'[s an important point which should be pointed out every time the tories boast about their record numbers of people in work.

[Loz]

Otta Wrote:

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> It's not entirely unrelated though. The fact is that jobs are being created which are barely worth

> having, and so food banks are needed. It'[s an important point which should be pointed out every

> time the tories boast about their record numbers of people in work.

In a wider sense of the current economy, I fully agree. But when they set yourself up as a 'myth busting service' but then widen the remit, then they look foolish. Especially if you don't look even deeper to show that it is the beneficiaries of these new jobs that are attending food banks.

As I said, the Channel 4 FactCheck did this sort of thing with much, much more credibility.

[Blah Blah]

Excellent posts David Carnell. I'll just throw in that under the coalition we spend ?28 billion a year subsidising low paid workers with child tax credits and Housing Benefit. Everything the Tories claim about Britain recovering with a strong economy is crap.

Is productiity up under the coalition? No.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32143552

Are tax receipts up now all those jobs have been created under the coalition? No.

Are exports up? No. In fact they are down.

http://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/how-has-uks-coalition-government-performed

Osbourne is a fantasist.

[Loz]

Productivity and tax receipts are indeed down, blah blah, and that is a big black mark against the coalition. But it would be plain wrong to say the economy is not growing - and at a rate that is currently faster than most major western economies. Even the Guardian (grudgingly) admits that. But another Guardian article also points out this is also the slowest recovery since the 1920's. Both views are correct. Tories will concentrate on one view. Labourites the other. It's always the way with one-eyed support. It's why I find newspapers during elections particularly useless unless you read a few and try and find the real truth.

Personally, I think the economy is - relative to the rest of the world - in pretty good shape. But I also suspect that is more down to Osbourn being lucky rather than competent.

And without knowing what housing benefit and child tax credit costs were in, say, 2007 (pre crash) and 2009 (pre-Tories) that single figure of benefits is hard is hard to judge. Is ?28bn good, bad or normal? I can find housing benefit in 2009 (?21.5bn according to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11466178) but I can't find any of the others.

[JohnL]

I reckon Cameron is going to get distracted by the nationalists tonight

(who seem to want there chance at him).

[Blah Blah]

That in work benefits bill is up Loz. It has a lot to do with low wages and increasing costs of living, namely rent.

I disagree with you Loz in that a growing economy where tax receipts, productivity and exports are down, it reflects the scenario that what growth there is, is being hoovered up by a few sectors (finance being one). So for me, it is not the sign of a healthy economy at all. Low wages, poor exorts, productivity etc, affect things like national debt. We are still borrowing more than we did in 2010. We've done nothing to change the aspects of the economy that caused the crash. Business in banking is the same as ever, and we gave them billions of our money to get back there.

What I would say is that these are the problems of an economy that has been in decline for the last 50 years. And yes Osbourne has been as lucky as Gordon Brown was unlucky to be the scapegoat of a massive global crash. Well that's just the ways it goes. But to think for one minute that Osbourne is delivering anything but more of the same, when we all know that more of the same hasnt worked for at least two decades, is fantasy.

We think the last financial crash was bad. We are heading for something far worse unless we get back in control of our wealth. There isn't much left to give away to foreign shareholders tbh. The free market does NOT take care of all. the cost of housing IS out of control, the over 65's are going to become even more expensive to the state finances etc and no-one in government or in opposition really seems bothred enough by any of it. But then it seems, nor are we!

[Otta]

[Loz]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> That in work benefits bill is up Loz.

From what? Without the numbers, how do you know?