Political Discussions And Ranting Thread

[Master Obit 831]

On 02/06/2024 at 12:38, DCI Frank Burnside said:

 

Also coming from Non Dom Ashcroft......

 

I keep hearing about all these non-dom people. Personally, I've always used the term sub.

[YoungWillz 21,046]

Douglas Ross says he will not stand as a candidate in the General Election.

 

Ross stands as candidate for Aberdeenshire North And Moray in the General Election.

 

Ross says he will stand down as Scottish Tory leader and if successful in the General Election will resign as an MSP.

 

You can tell when Ross is lying. His lips move.

[msc 18,472]

15 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

 

Ross says he will stand down as Scottish Tory leader

And nothing of value was lost.

 

16 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

 if successful in the General Election will resign as an MSP.

 

Not sure he needs to worry about that. Heard staunch Tories in that area telling folk to vote SNP over Ross!

[YoungWillz 21,046]

2 minutes ago, msc said:

Not sure he needs to worry about that. Heard staunch Tories in that area telling folk to vote SNP over Ross!

Well, that would be shocker. If he manages to lose that seat, it's over for that blue corner of the North East.

[msc 18,472]

3 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

Well, that would be shocker. If he manages to lose that seat, it's over for that blue corner of the North East.

 

It should be their safest seat in Scotland (well, without Teflon Mundell in it) but people really don't like what happened to Duguid. I think they'll still have the 3 borders seats and at least one of the North East (likely 2) but I am open to being pleasantly surprised.

[DCI Frank Burnside 3,887]

Ross getting fucked over on election night now that would be enjoyable 

 

 

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

9 hours ago, YoungWillz said:

Douglas Ross says he will not stand as a candidate in the General Election.

Ross stands as candidate for Aberdeenshire North And Moray in the General Election.

Ross says he will stand down as Scottish Tory leader and if successful in the General Election will resign as an MSP.

You can tell when Ross is lying. His lips move.

 

I mean, I'm not a overly keen follower of the nuts and bolts of Scottish devolution, but even I knew that a) being an MSP and an MP was frowned upon and b) Douglas Ross had made it very clear he'd be standing down as an MP at the end of his term. I don't understand how he thought he'd get away with this on any level. Or maybe he didn't intend to. Now the icing on the cake will be if he loses his Westminster seat and is reduced to a backbench MSP. 

[DCI Frank Burnside 3,887]

 

 

Baroness May..

 

Even with all the shite around him he still tried to push Sharp into the HoL......

[Toast 16,140]

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

1 hour ago, DCI Frank Burnside said:

 

 

Baroness May..

 

Even with all the shite around him he still tried to push Sharp into the HoL......

 

No problem with May getting one, she's been a committed parliamentarian for nearly 30 years and was perfectly happy to go on the backbenches after her term as prime minister ended, the first to do so in quite some time (Brown served until 2015 but May actually fought another election after leaving office). She's already styled The Lady May as her husband's a Knight, now she'll be titled in her own right.

 

Least said about Sharp the better, glad he's been refused.

[Sly Ronnie 884]

3 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

No problem with May getting one, she's been a committed parliamentarian for nearly 30 years and was perfectly happy to go on the backbenches after her term as prime minister ended, the first to do so in quite some time (Brown served until 2015 but May actually fought another election after leaving office). She's already styled The Lady May as her husband's a Knight, now she'll be titled in her own right.

 

Least said about Sharp the better, glad he's been refused.

 

First ex-PM to do this since Callaghan in 1983. Heath fought many elections after his exit from Number 10 in 1974. Of course Truss is doing the same this time...

 

The Lady May sounds like a b-side to a 1960s Baroque pop single!

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

27 minutes ago, Sly Ronnie said:

First ex-PM to do this since Callaghan in 1983. Heath fought many elections after his exit from Number 10 in 1974. Of course Truss is doing the same this time...

 

The Lady May sounds like a b-side to a 1960s Baroque pop single!

 

My instinct was Callaghan, but I didn't have it to hand so left it vague. Heath left office in 1974 but fought every election until 2001! By which time he was Father of the House. Of those who lost elections, Major stayed on until 2001 and Brown until 2015. Blair left office immediately and Cameron quit after a year on the backbenches.

 

I think Truss is the first one amongst them to think she somehow still has a future as a top level government minister in the future! Surely the only reason she's standing again. Delusional.

[TQR 14,396]

[The Old Crem 3,606]

1 hour ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

My instinct was Callaghan, but I didn't have it to hand so left it vague. Heath left office in 1974 but fought every election until 2001! By which time he was Father of the House. Of those who lost elections, Major stayed on until 2001 and Brown until 2015. Blair left office immediately and Cameron quit after a year on the backbenches.

 

I think Truss is the first one amongst them to think she somehow still has a future as a top level government minister in the future! Surely the only reason she's standing again. Delusional.

Cameron lasted 8 weeks on the backbenchers most of which was summer recess. It felt like he basically stayed for the time he expected to still be PM for before Leadsom pulled out of the leadership race and May was crowned. 

[En Passant 3,741]

Here's an FT journalist being interviewed on a money podcast type of thing who thinks any party is going to have their work cut out after the election (amongst other topics). I found it interesting - It is however, over an hour long . Though in my opinion worth the time.

 

(Martin Wolf is Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times)

 

 

 

[En Passant 3,741]

Semi-seriously....

 

@RoverAndOut, @TQR, @msc, and any others sufficiently politically motivated, I'm curious and if you have the time to spare I'm interested about your opinions on the above, it's not just twaddle, trust me.

I genuinely think he makes decent points and (as posted elsewhere) am damn fed up of the  "we need the votes, pander to the masses, political 'newsspeak'" that goes on in those debates and everywhere else.

 

The stuff about housing and inheritance tax and local taxation, amongst much else, is thought provoking (to me at least).

 

 

 

 

Actually I just want to waste an hour of your lives pointlessly. Blow me.

[TQR 14,396]

28 minutes ago, En Passant said:

Semi-seriously....

 

@RoverAndOut, @TQR, @msc, and any others sufficiently politically motivated, I'm curious and if you have the time to spare I'm interested about your opinions on the above, it's not just twaddle, trust me.

I genuinely think he makes decent points and (as posted elsewhere) am damn fed up of the  "we need the votes, pander to the masses, political 'newsspeak' that goes on in those debates and everywhere else".

 

The stuff about housing and inheritance tax local taxation, amongst much else, is thought provoking (to me at least).

An hour? I’ll take a précis of it please 

 

‘Extreme wealth will destroy democracy’ has pretty strong face validity though. Will probs have a listen on me walk tomorrow.

[En Passant 3,741]

1 hour ago, TQR said:

An hour? I’ll take a précis of it please 

 

I shit you not, do you trust me not to sell you a turkey? (don't answer that).

Yeah just listen is good. I can get genuinely get engaged when this is discussed in this fashion in a way I simply cannot in the 'pap for the masses that gets votes' diatribe.

 

Thanks for at least considering it.

[msc 18,472]

8 hours ago, En Passant said:

Semi-seriously....

 

@RoverAndOut, @TQR, @msc, and any others sufficiently politically motivated, I'm curious and if you have the time to spare I'm interested about your opinions on the above, it's not just twaddle, trust me.

I genuinely think he makes decent points and (as posted elsewhere) am damn fed up of the  "we need the votes, pander to the masses, political 'newsspeak' that goes on in those debates and everywhere else".

 

The stuff about housing and inheritance tax and local taxation, amongst much else, is thought provoking (to me at least).

 

Actually I just want to waste an hour of your lives pointlessly. Blow me.

 

I'm aware of the smaller text bit. 

 

Not having a maths brain, economic theory is knackering. (Mind you, I have never sought to be Chancellor, and understand economic theory better than some who have, but that's not a good thing!) Many years ago now, I did have to read a lot of stuff on the economy of 2007-2010 in the lead up to the financial crash and the levers which prevented another Great Depression, for a project, and I came away from it with far greater respect for Gordon Brown. And considerably less respect for George Osborne. 

 

The best bit incidentally was the memoirs of Alan Greenspan, followed by the memoirs of George Soros. Greenspan somewhat whitewashed his role in events, and Soros, who wrote his book after Greenspans, takes a chapter out to trounce Greenspans version of events. Dignified, no, but rather amusing!

 

In rough order of your podcast. Wolf is correct about the constraints of modern capitalism, which is very far from the meritocracy we are taught to believe in, but I would say that as a socialist. He's correct about the demagogues. Unfortunately, even with his recent setback (setback in the "still in power" definition of the term), Modi is a model for that sort of leader. If you focus on infrastructure, or even speak about infrastructure while achieving little of it, you can gain a huge coalition of poorer voters who will look the other way if that comes with victimising minorities, and hell, many of them might see that as a joyful bonus. Boris Johnson saw this, hence the Levelling Up talk, but managed to damage his own brand before people noticed it was all talk and no action. Donald Trump in 2020 was an odd case in which while he had spoken loudly about everything he was going to do, on popularist localism he actually ceded the ground to Joe Biden, who made great political capital out of it in the Rust Belt. (This is something Biden also did successfully in campaigning in 2012 and a reason you can't count out his ground game, even if he is 82 and slow.) People put a lot of belief into Farage as being our version of this, and he's not got the tools (he has however overachieved for his position*), but the French political establishment knew Jean Marie le Pen wasn't a real threat, and so continued sleepwalking for decades until we are at the position we are now. Worse, they conceded ground, until the difference wasn't as scary to voters. Macron's probably surrendered the French parliament for reasons that bamboozle me, dreadful politician. What France is, is a lesson to the UK and Germany, but primarily us. If Labour get into power, the Macron route leads to an empowered far right. 

 

*The late Tony Benn said of Neil Kinnock once (and I paraphrase as its been years now), "he gave up every principle to get a good headline, and instead of public appraisal, he just lost every swing voter he began with". This reminds me of the Conservative party in recent years.

 

In terms of the post-war settlement (which is mythologised more than it was), that was ripped up by Reagonomics and Thatcher. Wolf is correct in that the rise of Donald Trump is linked to the rise of Reagan (in fact, Ronnie came up with the Make America Great Again slogan!), as the economic vulture capitalists allowed to grow unregulated in the eighties gave Trump his position of power. However, I don't think it was an inevitable Point A to Point B route. The rise of right wing demagogues was aided by the financial crash, which was aided by the consensus Reagan set up and Clinton and the Bushes followed, but this wasn't a necessary chain of cause and effect, it was a political expedience of dealing with it when you had to. We should have seen this coming, as Calvin Coolidge cut taxes and regulation and led to a vast Wall Street boom all through the 1920s, which led to a speculation disaster and the Wall Street Crash. Coolidge had the smart idea of retiring from the Presidency less than a year before, and so ahistorical politicians look at the cuts and economic boom under his reign and don't connect it to the vast bust that happened after. This also happened under Andrew Jackson, and in the 1870s. Economic history repeats. This is a lot of American economics, but in 1840, 1878, 1929 and 2007, the American system shock helped bugger up the rest of the world. Financially, a bit like the Mount Tambora explosion, which led to the UK having no summer in 1816!

 

In terms of the "need the votes, pander to the masses, newsspeak", I dislike it too. Unfortunately, we are but two voters in a sea of thirty million, and the vast majority of them are... structurally challenged to hearing the truth. The evidence is in the last century of voting. Enough voters to swing an election will vote against their own best interests if they fear a tax rise on themselves. Even in a situation like now, certain parties might fear it could be election changing, because they have the race memory of 1992 and the Poll Tax and economic decline being forgiven. Labour in general are always fighting the last election, and what the lessons the public taught them or they think the public taught them. Hence, Harriet Harman's idiotic decision to put the whips on the abstention of the Welfare bill in 2015, the decision that directly led to the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader, because as interim leader, that was the lesson she took from the 2015 election. That we needed to be harsher on benefits and immigration. Now in 2024, they are still adhering to the lessons of 2019: don't promise too much, don't let anyone think you are even slightly anti-semitic, don't both sides Putin. No, hang on, the last one is easy enough. I'm actually surprised how much the Labour manifesto has snuck in (its quite similar to the Corbyn manifesto, but with most of the headline stuff removed) but yeah, they're timid because voters have taught them to be timid. And probably for the best, as even now, in this climate, for every person online I see bemoaning the lack of progressive policies spouted by Kier Starmer, I've heard scared people with actual bloody votes worried that Starmer speaks far too revolutionary for their liking. It's an annoying internet truism to say we get the politicians we vote for, but the country certain does*.

 

*"The country needs more Alan Milburns and far less Dennis Skinners" as a ranking campaigner under Blair told me. Alan Milburn incidentally fucked off at the first bit of bother. 

 

The housing issues stem from the slum clearances. Not because the slum clearances were bad. Far from it. In clearing the slums, as political expediency, the major cities cleaned house. So they didn't get rid of the rotten stock, they got rid of everything: the good stock tenements, the town houses, the churches, the shops, the cinemas, the public loos, the community centres, everything. Vast chunks of which, had they been restored at the time (or in thousands of cases, any time in the decades leading including this Tory government), would have saved this country billions. The problems with creating the new areas like Easterhouse for example are a different topic in themselves, though adding mental health issues and a lack of anything to do to the working poor is creating a vacuum for health woes, addiction and crime. However,  this is specifically about the housing numbers. The houses in Glasgow, and London and other places were replaced with high rise towers. Now, I dislike high rises for many good reasons, like the fact they were badly maintained (damp often got into the roots), and poorly policed, and they tend to look ugly as shit. But in specific housing numbers, the number of flats you can get in a high rise, with UK planning permission rules, and health and safety laws, is considerably FEWER than what you can get from tenements or flats built on the same area! In fact, in Glasgow (sorry, most of my knowledge comes from my homeland, but the same thing happened across Britain), the clearances and building of the high rises led to a DEFICIT of 100, 000 homes. A deficit which we have been fighting ever since, with increased birth rates! Governments know we need housing, but they also like to be praised by the NIMBYs of the Mail, Telegraph and so on. Meanwhile, the opposition to this (so called Lib Dem and Green councillors*) revert to NIMBYism on housing in their own area. 

 

*Don't let this dissuade anyone voting Lib Dem in a Tory/Lib Dem seat next week. I'd say the same about the Greens, but I can't think of any seat where voting Green would be of use. And I speak as someone very into renewable energy!

 

 

We built huge numbers of houses in the 1890s, the 1920s and the 1950s. And not as many since. He's correct that developers and landlords gain a lot of power, but again, this is the vacuum of power. Where you leave a hole, someone finds a way to take advantage or fill that hole. Luckily, we have a lot of ground on which you could build houses, and its not the green belt. There are also things the government could do to persuade restoration of homes which exist but which are empty. For example, by removing the VAT on restoration building to make it equal with other building taxes, as the current system disencetivises doing anything to solve the crisis. (UKIP pointed this out in 2015, and lord knows I hate having to admit they were ever right about anything.) I think the government which solves this would be in power for a generation. The Tories surrendered the ground. If Labour surrender the ground in the next decade, they leave the ground open to the British Modi and can't assume they won't show up. 

 

I have to admit a blind spot on inheritance tax as it involves sums way beyond my life experience. It kicks in after the first £325k. It's a bit like George Harrison writing Taxman. The 95% rate (which was intended to make NHS prescriptions free, but the backlash led to it being abandoned) only kicked in well above the normal level of pay, so the Beatles were already richer than Croesus before those tax bands kicked in. His issue is that the people they hung out with where siphoning off every little bit of money and blaming the tax system for their philandering! (The fact that the Beatles were so shit with their money, incidentally, means its staggering to me that somehow Paul McCartney wound up with 100% of the royalties for Yesterday, one of the most ludicrously successful royalties decisions in music history. People around the Fab Four were so greedy they didn't notice the actual money tree right there in front of them.) I'm sure it sucks if you have to pay a huge tax bill when you inherit shitloads, but I'm afraid that's someone elses who is far richer than me and their problem. Unsatisfying but honest! I will say I am open to hearing about land taxing, given the amount of landbanking profiteers due in the UK, which directly leads to the housing problem mentioned above. Everything is connected!

 

In short (err, what, msc?), I tend to agree with the general points. However, I would note that Gordon Brown spoke nothing but caution as Shadow Chancellor, yet his first act was Bank of England independence, and child poverty was all but eradicated through his time in office, as were NHS waiting times. But he also said that Labour needed a few years in office to prove they wouldn't wreck the economy (thanks to media and Tory propaganda) so they could be trusted to actually fix things. I suspect (or hope) that time period will be a lot shorter for Starmer and co, and that once the fears of not being elected are (hopefully) removed, they get on with the job we all want them to do, without an electorate to box them in. I'll be judging them on the things they do in office (should they get there) rather than the mealmouthed stuff they need to say to get elected. Blair/Brown and Wilson and MacMillan said much the same much ado about nothing and were transformative. David Cameron did the same, and was a complete and utter David Cameron.

 

The alternative is the route to the demagogues outlined by Wolf, but so often they prove they can talk of solutions but provide none of them, and hurt the very people who need them most. So for all of that, and a few historical injustices I'm sore on (see housing above), I'm hoping Starmer realises the task ahead. Because bloody hell, to quote one former Prime Minster, there is no alternative!

 

 

 

[msc 18,472]

I wonder which point @En Passant regretted asking me. I'm thinking around the first syllable. 

 

Everything is interconnected! James Burke was always spot on about this sort of thing.

[DCI Frank Burnside 3,887]

[Toast 16,140]

4 hours ago, msc said:

We built huge numbers of houses in the 1890s, the 1920s and the 1950s. And not as many since. He's correct that developers and landlords gain a lot of power, but again, this is the vacuum of power. Where you leave a hole, someone finds a way to take advantage or fill that hole. Luckily, we have a lot of ground on which you could build houses, and its not the green belt. There are also things the government could do to persuade restoration of homes which exist but which are empty. For example, by removing the VAT on restoration building to make it equal with other building taxes, as the current system disencetivises doing anything to solve the crisis. (UKIP pointed this out in 2015, and lord knows I hate having to admit they were ever right about anything.) I think the government which solves this would be in power for a generation. The Tories surrendered the ground. If Labour surrender the ground in the next decade, they leave the ground open to the British Modi and can't assume they won't show up.

 

One thing which seems utterly insane to me is the EPC restrictions on letting a dwelling. 

 

The Energy Performance Certificate is a rating on how energy efficient a home is.  It ranges from A down to G.  Homes below E rating may not be rented out.  And there was an intention to raise that to C.  Now it's extremely difficult if not impossible to improve the rating of old houses. My old cottage has got solid walls (any pre-20th C house will have solid walls) so cavity wall insulation is not an option.  It's all electric, so not penalised for using fossil fuels.  It's rated F.  So if I moved out, I wouldn't legally be allowed to let it.

 

There must be thousands of perfectly habitable houses that are now legally unrentable because of this lunacy, and if they (whoever gets in) raise the minimum to C there will be millions.

[En Passant 3,741]

4 hours ago, msc said:

I wonder which point @En Passant regretted asking me. I'm thinking around the first syllable. 

 

Everything is interconnected! James Burke was always spot on about this sort of thing.

 

Absolutely not one jot of a regret. This is precisely the raising of the level of debate I was looking for but didn't seriously expect.

I felt what Wolf was saying made sense mostly, but never having studied politics sufficiently I had nothing else much to back it up.

I still find it hard to find relatively honest appraisals of our political landscape out there, most sources have one reason or another to spin it, or balance it which sometimes amounts to the same thing.

 

You've utterly overachieved on my expectations, I'm grateful and in awe.

 

[msc 18,472]

14 minutes ago, En Passant said:

 

Absolutely not one jot of a regret. This is precisely the raising of the level of debate I was looking for but didn't seriously expect.

I felt what Wolf was saying made sense mostly, but never having studied politics sufficiently I had nothing else much to back it up.

I still find it hard to find relatively honest appraisals of our political landscape out there, most sources have one reason or another to spin it, or balance it which sometimes amounts to the same thing.

 

You've utterly overachieved on my expectations, I'm grateful and in awe.

 

 

I can bore for Britain on the Glasgow house clearances (in fact, at least one former First Minister can attest to this) as, being poor and Glaswegian growing up, I wanted to find out why various things didn't work around us. And then as an adult, I found out these circumstances had repeated themselves all over Britain. 

[The Old Crem 3,606]

10 minutes ago, msc said:

 

I can bore for Britain on the Glasgow house clearances (in fact, at least one former First Minister can attest to this) as, being poor and Glaswegian growing up, I wanted to find out why various things didn't work around us. And then as an adult, I found out these circumstances had repeated themselves all over Britain. 

London is split on tower blocks.. Some council areas like Waltham Forest demolished all their tower blocks in the 1980’s while some still have most of the 50’s and 60’s stock still remaining.  Slum clearance also only happened in parts with other parts (Like where I am) still full of pre 1900 housing stock.