Another 5 years of Tory rule in the UK

[99call]

1 minute ago, Ritch said:

Austerity was required as labour splurged all the money...

International crisis, caused by unregulated gratuitously greedy bankers?  no? nada?  

Cameron said everyone was going to have to "tighten their belts".   The top 5% have done exceedingly well out of austerity and the poor have been to ones to suffer. 

 

[Ritch]

11 minutes ago, 99call said:

International crisis, caused by unregulated gratuitously greedy bankers?  no? nada?  

Cameron said everyone was going to have to "tighten their belts".   The top 5% have done exceedingly well out of austerity and the poor have been to ones to suffer. 

 

Bankers had nowt to do with it.

For 10 years labour ran a massive deficit that only got worse. Majors government ran a surplus.

Then a sub prime crisis happend in the USA because poor people had mortgages they couldnt afford to pay. That rippled down and through the world and seemingly overnight liquidity dried up. Thats what recession is, its all of a sudden people thinking damn im over exposed here, best not spend anything and had best hold onto the money i have and pay my bills late. When everyone does that it causes knock on problems.

Houses then didnt sell, prices fell as people were desperate, people then left in negative equity, banks foreclosed to cover their liabilties... massive negative feedback loop.

RBS was massively exposed, at the time they tried to pull the rug from underneath my families feet and withdraw credit. (RBS forcing companies to take advisors and be put into special measures is quite well documented. Essentially the advisors asset stripped the companies). 

The government had no choice but to step in and provide liquidity, that was in fairness under written with shares in the banks. That money however, and this is what people do not seem to appreciate - is a drop in the ocean compared to the deficit and the national debt.

 

[99call]

1 minute ago, Ritch said:

Bankers had nowt to do with it.

So other countries around the world having to fiscally tighten their belts at the same time, was just by chance?

I agree with you, there was a huge amount of waste under the Blair years, and it cant be a part of any future Labour government.   But the Tory government has been bleating for the last ten years, It's all their fault.    Some of it is true, but a large part of it is they feather their own bed in both boom, and bust, alike. 

Now that austerity, has "ended", a total lie and nonsense,  surely this will mean they can no longer hang all their failures on the blame game.  It will be interesting to see what excuse they will conjure. now their ace in the hole is spent. 

[CaptainQuintero]

2 hours ago, 99call said:

So other countries around the world having to fiscally tighten their belts at the same time, was just by chance?

I agree with you, there was a huge amount of waste under the Blair years, and it cant be a part of any future Labour government.   But the Tory government has been bleating for the last ten years, It's all their fault.    Some of it is true, but a large part of it is they feather their own bed in both boom, and bust, alike. 

Now that austerity, has "ended", a total lie and nonsense,  surely this will mean they can no longer hang all their failures on the blame game.  It will be interesting to see what excuse they will conjure. now their ace in the hole is spent. 

  One of the things never mentioned in the election was the utter devastation caused by New Labour to the NHS when he opened up privatisation via PFI financing to upgrade or build new hospitals.

  Eg my local trust took on a PFI contact under pressure from the labour government for a £400m upgrade. When it pays off the financing it will have paid £1.2 billion and the new buildings will revert back to ownership of the private company which provided the financing. The trust would be running a surplus even after hiring all the extra nurses it needed and built the extra wards if it wasn't having to make the payments back. The vast majority of hospitals and NHS trusts being underfunded is actually because of the crippling repayments they have to make. This is the reason why the NHS is in crisis yet no one even mentioned it once. 

  Labour took out at least 50 PFI hospital contacts with the aim of transferring all non-core proceedures to private healthcare providers which the NHS then hire, with only clinical services remaining under direct NHS control. Those new hospitals/buildings revert to compete private ownership in the 2030's when the payments finish. They're essentially rent paid by the trust to use the buildings/services. This didn't even bring into the schools that were build with PFI. 

  It doesn't matter what the Tories did/do since 2010, Blair and Brown signed the death note of the NHS years ago when they bought votes with the idea of smaller classrooms and more hospitals. All those hospitals and schools etc will be break in private hands in the next 15 years

 

[Ritch]

4 hours ago, 99call said:

So other countries around the world having to fiscally tighten their belts at the same time, was just by chance?

I agree with you, there was a huge amount of waste under the Blair years, and it cant be a part of any future Labour government.   But the Tory government has been bleating for the last ten years, It's all their fault.    Some of it is true, but a large part of it is they feather their own bed in both boom, and bust, alike. 

Now that austerity, has "ended", a total lie and nonsense,  surely this will mean they can no longer hang all their failures on the blame game.  It will be interesting to see what excuse they will conjure. now their ace in the hole is spent. 

Global economic recession... the money stop flowing around. So everyone had to stop spending. Which meant the money flowed around even less!

In fairness if we had another ten years of austerity then we could make a good dent in the national debt and perhaps even run a surplus.

That wont happen tho, a bit of investment is required.

[Ritch]

1 hour ago, CaptainQuintero said:

  One of the things never mentioned in the election was the utter devastation caused by New Labour to the NHS when he opened up privatisation via PFI financing to upgrade or build new hospitals.

  Eg my local trust took on a PFI contact under pressure from the labour government for a £400m upgrade. When it pays off the financing it will have paid £1.2 billion and the new buildings will revert back to ownership of the private company which provided the financing. The trust would be running a surplus even after hiring all the extra nurses it needed and built the extra wards if it wasn't having to make the payments back. The vast majority of hospitals and NHS trusts being underfunded is actually because of the crippling repayments they have to make. This is the reason why the NHS is in crisis yet no one even mentioned it once. 

  Labour took out at least 50 PFI hospital contacts with the aim of transferring all non-core proceedures to private healthcare providers which the NHS then hire, with only clinical services remaining under direct NHS control. Those new hospitals/buildings revert to compete private ownership in the 2030's when the payments finish. They're essentially rent paid by the trust to use the buildings/services. This didn't even bring into the schools that were build with PFI. 

  It doesn't matter what the Tories did/do since 2010, Blair and Brown signed the death note of the NHS years ago when they bought votes with the idea of smaller classrooms and more hospitals. All those hospitals and schools etc will be break in private hands in the next 15 years

 

Yup. Debt is off the balance book and its almost like new labour had their cake and ate it and knew full welp the torys would have to clear up the mess for decades after.

Yet labour supporters turn a blind eye to this..

[El Presidente]

Gents you are welcome to discuss the broader UK picture and even the minute points.

Avoid being campaigners for your party.  It is unedifying. 

 

[Ritch]

1 hour ago, El Presidente said:

Gents you are welcome to discuss the broader UK picture and even the minute points.

Avoid being campaigners for your party.  It is unedifying. 

 

You just made me get a dictionary out...

I do quite agree. Thankfully in the UK we are more than just a two party government. So it is more than a us v them situation, those of us on the centre are somewhat fickle with pur votes!

I have voted for the Lib Dems as many times as the Torys. And i do have to admit that Labour was somewhat appealing this time. Unfortunately idealism and well intentions do not quite translate into reality. Perhaps with stronger leadership I may have commited the immortal sin (just as working class voters in labour strongholds find it hard to vote tory, us upper working class/lower middle class voters in tory strongholds find is hard to vote labour). Close but no cigar this time, mainly down to a lack of leadership and the fact that the previous labour government (who are nothing to do with Corbyns version of labour) left everything in such a mess.

Politics are truly changing in the UK, its not a two party race and personally reform and perhaps even PR would lead to more reasonable and centre ground government in future.

[Hookmaker]

How is this thread gone this far when the same thread that is US-centric is stopped?

[Webbo]

Whichever side of the UK political divide (and remain or leave) in the UK you sit on one thing that is for sure you can agree on is we now have a completely different ball game. The size of Johnson's election win means that the Conservatives now own the problems and will have no excuses if things don't turn out as they promised. Actions now not words are the order of the day, let us see...

[Ritch]

19 hours ago, Webbo said:

Whichever side of the UK political divide (and remain or leave) in the UK you sit on one thing that is for sure you can agree on is we now have a completely different ball game. The size of Johnson's election win means that the Conservatives now own the problems and will have no excuses if things don't turn out as they promised. Actions now not words are the order of the day, let us see...

Agreed. And we havent had a majority government since 2017. We shall see what happens. 

[ha_banos]

Personally love reading these threads. A mixture of my political ignorance. Lack of following politically or economically important subjects. A bunch of old cigar blokes. Thread goes in all sorts of directions that leave me with a plethora of news to have to go catch up on historically. Keep up the good work. Thanks.