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With an increasing tendancy for navel-gazing in this thread engendered by Brexit and the forthcoming General Election perhaps we should be looking a little further afield than EUROPE.
In the light of the announcement that a Chinese company is to take over what remains of British Steel British Steel to be rescued by Chinese firm and their continued and increasing interest in participating in both our Nuclear power generation program and communication networks perhaps we should be listening more to what Isabel Hilton has to say? Isabel Hilton She has just finished a revealing series of three radio programmes on "China in the World" well worth a listen if you haven't heard about the BRI the Belt and Road Initiative among other things.
China and the World - Who Dares Wins? - BBC Sounds
Perhaps there are worse options than Europe?
 
We have any financial experts/analysts on here?

Is it possible to give a rough idea of how the economy would be now had Labour had their thoughts implemented (less/no austerity etc. etc. ) instead of where we are now with the Tories implementation. Let's say over the period that the recession really started to bite?

Would prefer not to have a battle about who is best etc. - just something I am curious about
 
The Brexit Party has announced that it will not stand candidates in the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the 2017 general election.
Brexit Party won't stand in Tory seats - Farage

That reads like Farage would rather a Conservative government with whatever deal BJ can negotiate rather than a Corbyn led Labour government and a leader who changes his mind as often as the weather regarding their stance on Brexit.

I also believe Farage would have a big problem actually finding up to 600 candidates to stand in all constituencies. It's also two fingers up to the SNP who are happy to climb in bed with Labour to deny a Tory win whilst still banging on about independence that Scotland voted against in the past.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dums have all but lost the chance of any leave voters by going against public opinion and scrapping Brexit their main policy.
You couldn't make it up.
 
Farage has done the right thing.

Whether unilaterally or following some kind of agreement has yet to be seen. His and Boris' outriders have been in talks for several weeks now, so my money's on the latter.

Even if that is correct, will Boris keep his word?
 
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Meanwhile, the Lib Dums have all but lost the chance of any leave voters by going against public opinion and scrapping Brexit their main policy.
You couldn't make it up.

The Lib"dems" were diminished in the last two GEs. It's pretty logical for them to go after the remain vote in the SE of England. They could end up the largest opposition party in England if things work out for them. That's a major recovery.

I think if Mr Ashdown were still leader they would a lot more coherent and be poised to knock out Labour. However under Ms Swinson they seem too lightweight.
 
So you are saying that - according to Corbyn - the money for public spending will come from closing tax avoidance loopholes and clamping down on tax evasion?

No I'm not - because he hasn't said that.

The mystery is history.... John McDonnell reveals all.

According to Labour's manifesto, public spending will be funded by taxing the top 5% of earners. There will be no VAT increase, and 90% of the people will not be affected by the planned tax increases (I am aware that there's 5% missing here, but I am just repeating what I heard was said on Radio 4).

The multinational tech giants - Apple, Google, Amazon etc - will be taxed based on the percentage of global profit generated in the UK, and no 'sweetheart' deal to reduce Corporation Tax payment. This move will raise an estimated £20bn, which will be used to buy back British Telecom from the public and provide free Fibre broadband to every household in the UK by 2030. The availability of free Fibre broadband will invigorate the economy to the tune of an estimated £59bn.

So now we know where the funding will come from - taxing the rich and taxing multinational corporations.

Personally, my comment is: Good Luck with the former, and Good Luck with the latter.

PS - on another note, BT shares were down 3% when the news of re-nationalisation under a Labour government emerged. This is a very small decrease in value, considering the potential gravity of the news. Some analysts say this is because BT shares are currently at an all-time low anyway, for a range of other reasons... others said this is an indication as to what the markets think of the likelihood that a Corbyn/McDonnell/Abbott government will become a reality.
 
According to Labour's manifesto, public spending will be funded by taxing the top 5% of earners.

No it won't and they haven't said that it will.

We already know that Labour plans to increase tax for higher earners.

And regardless of funds raised from taxation, we also know that they are committed to large-scale public borrowing to help pay for their plans. And so are the Conservatives.

We've done this.
 
I wonder if anyone has totted up all of the Labour spending promises. If they carry on at this rate it will exceed national GDP. Lets hope the voters can see through it.

Anyone else already fed up with the nonsense spouted by all parties in this general election. I wish it wasn't still 4 weeks away. Maybe all general elections are as bad and I've just forgotten.
 
At least Labour have optimism is us as a country. Somewhat like children in the playground creating a fantasystic future in their theory games.

But I wish all of them would stop competing with the money I don't have now, never mind in future, to buy votes.
As if the past 3+ years hasn't proven how useless and pathetic all parties are they feel a need to keep reminding us.
 
This move will raise an estimated £20bn, which will be used to buy back British Telecom from the public and provide free Fibre broadband to every household in the UK by 2030.
While I don't have any idealistic objection to state ownership of some industry sectors, I can't help thinking that anyone outside the political ideologues who think this is a good idea have forgotten quite how bad the state-owned BT actually were at delivering anything approaching reasonable levels of service at a reasonable price.

You may (reasonably) have the view that BT are pretty sh*t today, but by God, their performance is an exemplar of customer-focused delivery by comparison to what it used to be :eek:
 
No it won't and they haven't said that it will.

We already know that Labour plans to increase tax for higher earners.

And regardless of funds raised from taxation, we also know that they are committed to large-scale public borrowing to help pay for their plans. And so are the Conservatives.

We've done this.

No idea - I am merely repeating what the Labour chap said on Radio 4's 6 O'clock News last evening.
 
No idea - I am merely repeating what the Labour chap said on Radio 4's 6 O'clock News last evening.

But you're not though.

Nobody from Labour, on the Six O'clock News, in their manifesto or anywhere else, has claimed that "public spending will be funded by taxing the top 5% of earners".

Whilst Labour are seeking to increase tax revenues from this group, the willingness of both parties to borrow in order to meet their spending pledges has already been extensively discussed here and lots of other places.
 
While I don't have any idealistic objection to state ownership of some industry sectors, I can't help thinking that anyone outside the political ideologues who think this is a good idea have forgotten quite how bad the state-owned BT actually were at delivering anything approaching reasonable levels of service at a reasonable price.

You may (reasonably) have the view that BT are pretty sh*t today, but by God, their performance is an exemplar of customer-focused delivery by comparison to what it used to be :eek:
Their workforce were very happy though. Well paid, early retirement, job for life and plenty of opportunity for skiving.
 
While I don't have any idealistic objection to state ownership of some industry sectors, I can't help thinking that anyone outside the political ideologues who think this is a good idea have forgotten quite how bad the state-owned BT actually were at delivering anything approaching reasonable levels of service at a reasonable price.

In fairness to them, the time you refer to was one where the concept of customer service was still to be invented. America got litigious ('perfume ruined my lunch') and from that point on the USA and the UK went all out on it. Too far said many, unaccustomed to being regaled with 'have a nice day'.
For sure though, you can get a phone line installed much much quicker these days (though a month just to arrange a number for an existing line smacks of GPO days) but no one to call or answer any calls made on it.

You may (reasonably) have the view that BT are pretty sh*t today, but by God, their performance is an exemplar of customer-focused delivery by comparison to what it used to be :eek:

Try a business account with them. Woeful. Only their technical staff have any competence. The building housing the billing department would be as well burned down.
 
Their workforce were very happy though. Well paid, early retirement, job for life and plenty of opportunity for skiving.
Do you remember those strange little red and white striped tents they used to erect as soon as they arrived at any roadside infrastructure? Second job on the agenda was to set the stove up and have a brew :rolleyes:

I have a number of friends from long ago who worked for BT in the days of state ownership and they all did very nicely out of it, thank you very much.
 
Apart from trying to attract votes from the gullible, I don't suppose for one minute that the real aim of the marxists is to control and thus censure internet content and comment throughout the UK?
 
Try a business account with them. Woeful. Only their technical staff have any competence. The building housing the billing department would be as well burned down.
Oh, I've suffered business relationships with BT in the recent past and - as I mentioned in my post above - they really are sh*t. It's hard to believe how much worse they used to be though.

Back when the telecoms market was first deregulated, the firm I worked for switched their tied datacom lines we had running between our UK sites to Mercury Telecoms (remember them?). Trouble was, this meant that some of the end-to-end infrastructure was run by BT and some by Mercury and whenever there was a fault, both blamed each other. I thoroughly enjoyed getting an engineer from both organisations on site concurrently and, after they'd both done the "not our equipment at fault, it's theirs" routine, locking them in our comm's room and telling them I'd only let them out when they'd agreed who was going to fix the fault. Funny how that brought clarity to their thinking and a rapid resolution :)

Happy days... Not!
 

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