Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

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gilsey
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by gilsey »

Willow904 wrote: The point about governments being able to spend as much as resources allow is roughly correct, but is made within the context of taxation already in place to retrieve the money spent. Money spent on public sector workers, for instance, is retrieved through income tax and NI. They then spend money on goods and thus VAT and so on.
I've seen a few comments over the years to the effect that New Labour's extra spending on the NHS 'all went on wages and salaries' as if that was a bad thing. Any increased spending going to better pay for nurses and junior doctors, and more of them, will encourage UK people to stay in those jobs.

Our economy is so depressed at present that IMO there would be absolutely no need to raise taxes straight away, a public spending boost would be a boon.
Not likely to happen under this govt.
One world, like it or not - John Martyn
gilsey
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by gilsey »

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... ngling-boy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One world, like it or not - John Martyn
PaulfromYorkshire
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by PaulfromYorkshire »

Quite important stuff from Keir Starmer on Twitter last night

@Keir_Starmer
14h14 hours ago

Thought long & hard about responding to this from @campbellclaret - his core argument - that I have ever suggested that Labour will not vote against a Tory Brexit that fails our 6 tests - is bogus. But at least it gives me the chance to reiterate that!
PaulfromYorkshire
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by PaulfromYorkshire »

And signposting a Tweet from a couple of weeks back
Long standing Labour policy. Six tests for the govt’s proposed Article 50 deal. If not met, we vote against. And, if we hold onto our crucial Lords’ amendment, Parliament decides what happens next.
gilsey
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by gilsey »

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

tony nog #FBPE


@tony_nog
14h14 hours ago
More
5) Galileo however is a new low. The spectacle of "free market" obsessed Tories of decades standing now pretending that duplication of an entire satellite system to provide essentially the same features is not only required but "a good idea" is surreal
They've lost their way
One world, like it or not - John Martyn
PaulfromYorkshire
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by PaulfromYorkshire »

Think you may have overlooked that all six tests are based on Tory Brexit promises. David Davis coined the “exact same benefits” promise. PM said she was “determined to meet” all my tests. You may have lowered your expectations. Why should I lower the tests?
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ers-crisis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Red alert: UK farmers warn of soft fruit shortage

Growers fear strawberries will be left to rot as Europe’s migrant workers stay away – but it’s not just a Brexit issue"
Other European countries are bringing in workers from outside the EU. Brooks said Poland was using workers from North Korea while Portugal was relying on migrant labour from Thailand. “Here’s the irony,” Brooks said. “We are the only country in Europe that has a European worker only policy. Everywhere else is recruiting from outside the EU.”
Govt. Ignoring issue because solution doesn't fit their
Brexit narrative.
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018 ... s-funding/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The only explanation for that is that he is not thinking, or cannot think, or wants to perpetuate the tax inequality we have in the UK where the wealthy pay no bigger a share of their income in tax than most in the population do.
And as I have also shown, we could raise this money from additional taxes on wealth.
above, linked to report on additional taxes.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-c ... xUK816.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interestingly, the IFS report's section on raising additional revenue, acknowledged (briefly, somewhere in chapter 4)
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/12994" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
that it might be done by reorganization of tax system, but that was outside the scope of the report.
So it's not that the IFS hasn't got the imagination to change things, just that the they're sticking within present parameters, which seems a bit counter productive when trying to come up with new funding. You can see why Richard Murphy gets cheesed off.
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Willow904
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by Willow904 »

tinybgoat wrote:http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018 ... s-funding/
The only explanation for that is that he is not thinking, or cannot think, or wants to perpetuate the tax inequality we have in the UK where the wealthy pay no bigger a share of their income in tax than most in the population do.
And as I have also shown, we could raise this money from additional taxes on wealth.
above, linked to report on additional taxes.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-c ... xUK816.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interestingly, the IFS report's section on raising additional revenue, acknowledged (briefly, somewhere in chapter 4)
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/12994" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
that it might be done by reorganization of tax system, but that was outside the scope of the report.
So it's not that the IFS hasn't got the imagination to change things, just that the they're sticking within present parameters, which seems a bit counter productive when trying to come up with new funding. You can see why Richard Murphy gets cheesed off.
As we've already seen in Japan, the challenges facing advanced economies with aging populations are not easily solved by conventional means. The problems we face are changing, thus the solutions will need to be different. I'm not sure I see anyone in UK politics right now with the necessary grasp of the issues and the revolutionary vision needed to address them. I felt Ed Miliband had at least some sense of the need for a completely new approach, even if his ideas weren't fully developed and much constrained by the clinging to conventional wisdom of those around him. His idea for a constitutional convention in particular touched on the need to build widespread consensus for any radical change, something that seems to have worked well in Ireland. In losing the 2015 GE Ed lost the chance to build on this and instead we've ended up going in the opposite direction of growing division and polarisation. With rich/poor, old/young, north/south, educated/uneducated all played off against each other, everyone is coming to believe that the only way things can get better for them is for things to be worse for someone else and that's just such a wrong way of looking at government. Such attitudes will destroy democracy of they are allowed to prevail.
"Fall seven times, get up eight" - Japanese proverb
ohsocynical
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by ohsocynical »

DePOtd5X4AIMf4g.jpg
DePOtd5X4AIMf4g.jpg (65.62 KiB) Viewed 39680 times
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
AnatolyKasparov
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Willow904 wrote:
tinybgoat wrote:http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018 ... s-funding/
The only explanation for that is that he is not thinking, or cannot think, or wants to perpetuate the tax inequality we have in the UK where the wealthy pay no bigger a share of their income in tax than most in the population do.
And as I have also shown, we could raise this money from additional taxes on wealth.
above, linked to report on additional taxes.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-c ... xUK816.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interestingly, the IFS report's section on raising additional revenue, acknowledged (briefly, somewhere in chapter 4)
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/12994" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
that it might be done by reorganization of tax system, but that was outside the scope of the report.
So it's not that the IFS hasn't got the imagination to change things, just that the they're sticking within present parameters, which seems a bit counter productive when trying to come up with new funding. You can see why Richard Murphy gets cheesed off.
As we've already seen in Japan, the challenges facing advanced economies with aging populations are not easily solved by conventional means. The problems we face are changing, thus the solutions will need to be different. I'm not sure I see anyone in UK politics right now with the necessary grasp of the issues and the revolutionary vision needed to address them. I felt Ed Miliband had at least some sense of the need for a completely new approach, even if his ideas weren't fully developed and much constrained by the clinging to conventional wisdom of those around him. His idea for a constitutional convention in particular touched on the need to build widespread consensus for any radical change, something that seems to have worked well in Ireland. In losing the 2015 GE Ed lost the chance to build on this and instead we've ended up going in the opposite direction of growing division and polarisation. With rich/poor, old/young, north/south, educated/uneducated all played off against each other, everyone is coming to believe that the only way things can get better for them is for things to be worse for someone else and that's just such a wrong way of looking at government. Such attitudes will destroy democracy of they are allowed to prevail.
I am sympathetic to some of this, in particular about what EM was trying to do.

But to a significant extent the present "polarisation" is the work of the super-rich and powerful 1%, playing off other groups against each other in classic "divide and rule" style.
"IS TONTY BLAIR BEHIND THIS???!!!!111???!!!"
ohsocynical
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by ohsocynical »

Will Black
‏Verified account
@WillBlackWriter

First they came for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon but I didn't speak out because I don't assault the police

Then they came for Andrew McMaster but I didn't speak out because I'm not a fraudster

Then the came for Tommy Robinson and I didn't speak out because I'm not a far-right thug
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
ohsocynical
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by ohsocynical »

Peter Stefanovic
‏Verified account
@PeterStefanovi2

Let me get this straight,Tory Rees-Mogg's investment firm has stakes in string of Russian firms linked to Kremlin,Tory peer William Hague pockets cash from law firm slammed over links to Putin &Boris Johnson plays tennis with wife of Putin's ex-minister for £160,000 Tory donation
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

https://www.politico.eu/article/nicola- ... stainable/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Nicola Sturgeon: UK’s Brexit position ‘unsustainable’
Scotland’s first minister says EU debate has been hijacked by the ‘mad Brexiteers.’"
“They are not really listening to anybody except the mad Brexiteers,” she said, naming Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and backbench MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Does this infer that Liam Fox, etc. aren't mad, or just that no-one's listening to them?
edit: changed too, to to.
Last edited by tinybgoat on Mon 28 May, 2018 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ohsocynical
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by ohsocynical »

Will Dry OFOC!
‏@Will_DryOFOC

.@Jacob_Rees_Mogg has millions in:

£84m in Yandex - Kremlin's google

£44.5m in Sberbank - Kremlin's bank

£15m in Lukoil - US sanctioned oligarch owned company, which has dodgy dealings with Cambridge Analytica

His love of Brexit looking a little less pure

Mr Eton Oldboys MP
‏@EtonOldBoys

"Jacob Rees-Mogg" to buy a £5m pad in London, while the tax payer pays for his stately home to be repaired...
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
ohsocynical
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by ohsocynical »

Twenty8Sixty8
‏@WilliamPMack

In light of a possible #Election2018 in the Autumn, when the wheels spectacularly fall off the Tory #Brexit bandwagon, it'd be hugely honest of us all to preface Tory Party, or Conservative party with the words 'The Institutionally Racist'. Makes for long tweets, but its accurate
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

AnatolyKasparov wrote:
Willow904 wrote: As we've already seen in Japan, the challenges facing advanced economies with aging populations are not easily solved by conventional means. The problems we face are changing, thus the solutions will need to be different. I'm not sure I see anyone in UK politics right now with the necessary grasp of the issues and the revolutionary vision needed to address them. I felt Ed Miliband had at least some sense of the need for a completely new approach, even if his ideas weren't fully developed and much constrained by the clinging to conventional wisdom of those around him. His idea for a constitutional convention in particular touched on the need to build widespread consensus for any radical change, something that seems to have worked well in Ireland. In losing the 2015 GE Ed lost the chance to build on this and instead we've ended up going in the opposite direction of growing division and polarisation. With rich/poor, old/young, north/south, educated/uneducated all played off against each other, everyone is coming to believe that the only way things can get better for them is for things to be worse for someone else and that's just such a wrong way of looking at government. Such attitudes will destroy democracy of they are allowed to prevail.
I am sympathetic to some of this, in particular about what EM was trying to do.

But to a significant extent the present "polarisation" is the work of the super-rich and powerful 1%, playing off other groups against each other in classic "divide and rule" style.
It's polarised, but seems to be a general consensus that something needs to be done & it will involve more spending, so mayhe the opportunity's there for some leadership. Wonder if a more canny leader could have interpreted/prioritised the Brexit vote as mainly being a call to increase funding for the NHS, from the start.
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Willow904
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by Willow904 »

I'm not sure I follow. The Brexit vote provides nothing for the NHS that couldn't have been provided within the EU.

While one of the few things you have to leave the EU to achieve - reduction of EU immigration via freedom of movement - is actually proving quite negative for the NHS.
"Fall seven times, get up eight" - Japanese proverb
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

Willow904 wrote:I'm not sure I follow. The Brexit vote provides nothing for the NHS that couldn't have been provided within the EU.

While one of the few things you have to leave the EU to achieve - reduction of EU immigration via freedom of movement - is actually proving quite negative for the NHS.
Sorry, that's understandable (the not following bit). I was wondering if instead of interpreting the vote for Brexit as being mainly about immigration, Theresa May could have postponed/sidelined/ignored the article 50 bit and just focused on nhs funding. Probably not.
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Willow904
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by Willow904 »

Of course if we stay in the single market after Brexit, the economic impact will be less & future recruitment of extra NHS staff easier.

And certainly I would hope no Labour leader will fail to remind the Tories in such circumstances of the promise of extra NHS funding if we left the EU, so in that sense one might hope that consensus for better funding could be achieved, but whether such an outcome could ever compensate for the many negatives of leaving the EU seems doubtful, which is why it's hard to see Brexit as any kind of opportunity.

I agree with AK about divide & rule, though. It's an age old problem. And that's why my instinct is that the best Brexit is one where no one really "wins" but where both extremes of in and extremes of out have to compromise on something which is not ideal for either. Outside the EU but in the single market. None of our political parties seem to be offering that, though, as far as I can tell. Perhaps once remaining in or rejoining is accepted as impossible...
"Fall seven times, get up eight" - Japanese proverb
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Willow904
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by Willow904 »

tinybgoat wrote:
Willow904 wrote:I'm not sure I follow. The Brexit vote provides nothing for the NHS that couldn't have been provided within the EU.

While one of the few things you have to leave the EU to achieve - reduction of EU immigration via freedom of movement - is actually proving quite negative for the NHS.
Sorry, that's understandable (the not following bit). I was wondering if instead of interpreting the vote for Brexit as being mainly about immigration, Theresa May could have postponed/sidelined/ignored the article 50 bit and just focused on nhs funding. Probably not.
Oh wow I see. Well, there were lots of things she could have done to be less divisive and heal the rifts if she cared to/had an ounce of ability. There could have been an in depth debate & a white paper before the triggering of article 50, which would have helped a lot. Cameron's divisive disaster could certainly have been ameliorated a little by a more able successor than May.
"Fall seven times, get up eight" - Japanese proverb
tinybgoat
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by tinybgoat »

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/ber ... ot-happen/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Bernard-Henri Lévy: ‘Brexit will not happen’"
I read it hoping for some insightful reason, but didn't find one.


.
AnatolyKasparov
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

I'm afraid I find B-HL a bit of a kiss of death on such things these days.
"IS TONTY BLAIR BEHIND THIS???!!!!111???!!!"
PaulfromYorkshire
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Re: Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th May 2018

Post by PaulfromYorkshire »

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... alzheimers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

assissted-dying-katharine-whitehorn-alzheimers

As we were discussing.
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