Labour going from strength to strength
 

20 new appointments for the Labour front bench, some supporters some not.. onwards and upwards!! :D

Jeremy Corbyn has made a raft of appointments to Labour's front bench as he seeks to unite the party after strengthening his position as leader.

The Labour leader has given jobs to 20 MPs, including a number that have been openly critical of his leadership.

Among those to be brought back into the fold include former shadow cabinet minister Gloria de Piero, who was the second to resign from the shadow cabinet last May citing concerns about Mr Corbyn's leadership.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7821071.html

Right... now let's have the national debt please.

Crikey



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DD_5nwRXUAM39Pw.jpg:large

Pretty colours. :love:

I just thought the thread needed a make-over. It was being neglected.

Strewth.

yep so the entire country is actually better off under the tories lol

Labour leaving their haters shook! :clap1:

Do you have any understanding of mainstream economics at all?

When a government doesn't spend it leaves its country in the doldrums. When its spending less than it gets back in taxes its actually doing the economy a massive disservice because its taking money out of the economy. If you take lots of money in and only put part of that money back, it can only mean one thing; we earn less and things cost more. It makes no economic sense and its completely unjustified.

Neoliberal ideology is to have a small state. They don’t want the state interfering with our health, teaching and education. They want to sell all those public sector things off to the private sector and this is the only reason we are now being squeezed so hard by the Tories. Its collusive corruption that isn't being reported by mainstream media.

Its disaster capitalism in order to strip the country of its assets.

Well not when you have a massive budget deficit, ours is one of the highest in Europe

Precisely - Labour - the tax and spend Party - no changes there then! :shrug:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gene...overnment.html

We are not spending less than we get back in taxes.
The Tories have cut the Deficit by two thirds, until they get the other third paid off we are still living beyond our means.
Until we stop living beyond our means there is no chance of paying off any of the National debt.

Angus Robertson spent 93% of that on whisky

The national debt has gone from one trillion in 2010 to 1.7 trillion now under this lot.
Not a figure Cons want people to see Kizzy.

During the 13 years in which Labour was in power, there was an almost x3 increase in the national debt

It's almost as if - - - dun dun dddeeerrrrr - - - it makes absolutely no difference who is in power and it was the inevitable conclusion of global neoliberalism.

Sort of like... There are global political tides that can't be altered no matter who is in Westminster :omgno:, and squabbling over whose "which party's fault" it is is a pointless and fruitless exercise, as the poor continue to get relatively poorer, and the rich continue to laugh their way to the bank.

well yes, individual parties are not going to be able to shield against a global financial crisis regardless of how it happened. The minute our GDP shrinks, the debt becomes, shall we say, a bit of a thing

The uncomfortable truth is that the world can't support 7 billion-and-increasing people under our current systems of government and finance. It's not working. It's very possible, to be totally frank, that there isn't a system that DOES work.

We were at war, war does that drain resources. Are we at war now?
( plus a recession)

'But if the government spends less than it receives, then of course it would run a budget surplus. This may seem a strange concept in today's economic climate, but between 1998 and 2001 we had four straight years of surplus.'

Labour here reducing the deficit also without doubling debt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25944653

Maybe the war was a bad idea?

Hmm, but it was another thing that was going to happen regardless of who was in power. The "Blair-Bush-Blame" is a total red herring there.

Chilcott said today Blair acted on belief and not facts

i think that was a very Blair thing

That isn't the issue here is it?

That's entirely the point though, bigger things than Blair at play. I think if you could write an alternative timeline with another PM in charge, by amazing coincidence, they would have "acted on belief and not facts" too.

In other words, I personally don't believe he was given a whole lot of choice.

Deficits matter but what really matters is what your spending on. Italy’s deficit is lower today than Britain. Italy’s deficit has been lower than Germany’s deficit for the last 20 years; what does that tell us? It shows us that the deficit has never been the problem, the problem is Debt to GDP and the question is, what kind of investments will transform the entire economy and enhance the GDP?

We can only achieve long term growth if we stop making spending a false dilemma. If we don’t restore stable growth, the deficit will continue to rise. Fixing market failures will inevitably continue to fail if we don’t have a change in corporate governance and if we don’t form a new relationship between capital and labor.

:facepalm: Says the person who is committed to misunderstanding.

Labour STILL not understanding the figures. In the time since the Tories took over the Labourites have had a few years to sort their excuses... there was a world-wide recession... we would have gone to war under the Tories - which is at best, a matter for conjecture. Two weeks before the General Election Corbyn was a joke. Let's see where he is in five years.

:UMM2: W... what? Are we now down to pretending that there wasn't?

I know you think I'm stupid but I am actually not.

Yes there was a world-wide recession... and we were hit particularly hard in this country because the Labour government couldn't then, and have never been able to, balance the books.

And the reason for the doubling of the national debt is?.......

I don't, this is entirely your own issue and always has been Livia, but I am getting tired of saying it so carry on believing it if you want :shrug:.

The clue has always been in the words for me. And it's a shame... because I miss discussing stuff with you.

A has-been like Milliband.

Books were pretty balanced tbh before the global recession. Also banking crash would have hit us even harder had the Tories been in at the time as they actually wanted less regulation on the banks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...s-8601390.html



It gets rather annoying seeing Labour be blamed for something that happened worldwide. As if Labour are that powerful D:

Only real criticism I have of Labour is the war. And thats not even a labour thing, its a Blair thing. And Blairs 'New Labour' was closer to the tories than anything tbh. Labour is finally left again IMO. Other criticism thinking about it is not building more social housing, as thats caused a lot of the problems we have today. Selling off council houses (hen not replacing them) was ridiculous, though not sure which party actually started that.

But Labour can't balance the books, generally. They get in, they overspend... they're voted out and the Tories get in... the Tories balance they make cuts and try to get spending under control... then Labour get in and spend all the money again. It's a never ending cycle.

And yeah, I have to agree that Thatcher's idea to sell off council houses was one in a long line of bad moves... and not replacing those that were sold was an even worse move.

For Sure Dezzy

In one breath you want to remind us all that you're not stupid and in the next breath you want to remind us that we were hit particularly hard in this country because the Labour government couldn't balance the books. :facepalm:

How do you consider doubling the national debt not overspending?

I agree its a never ending cycle, but see it the opposite way to you. Tories cut vital services and take too much away from the poorest in society, then labour get in and restore the funding that should not have been cut in the first place, which looks like they are overspending. Tories in, cuts. Labour in, reversing :laugh:

Austerity is a totally idealistic pile of nonsense. The cuts they are making now aren't needed. The country would have recovered faster without the endless cuts. The country is recovering in spite of the Tories, not because of. Add the Brexit nonsense onto this and we will be ****ed again. It will be ridiculously expensive to get out IMO. This is why I am glad the Tories are still in charge to sort out their own mess. If labour had got in this election...they would have been forever blamed for the huge black hole brexit causes in our finances. Like they are blamed for the global recession.

The main problem I see honestly, that noone seems prepared to begin to tackle (though May did try with her manifesto and was slaughtered for it) is the aging population. The ridiculous promise of triple lock, fuel payments to millionaires and so on. We have too many old people. They are not contributing and the younger taxpayers are strained to pay for them all. I don't know the answer mind, but May was heading in the right direction with the 'cruel dementia tax'. Its unfair to expect younger taxpayers who are already in poverty to pay for older people who can afford to pay for themselves. Yes this may be a step towards privatization...but we simply cannot go on the way we are. Noone will seriously tackle it though as it is election suicide. have to lick up the pensioners arses to even stand a chance, and expect them to pay for something themselves doesn't go down well..as May found out D: