Re: The General Election Thread : Mon May 04, 2015 11:48 am  

BobbyD wrote:

From Andrew Neil on Twitter:

In absolute terms he is correct. As a %age of GDP (how the national debt is usually measured) he is way off the mark

Absolute (£bn):



%age of GDP

Re: The General Election Thread : Mon May 04, 2015 12:08 pm  

To change tack slightly, I got a leaflet through the door yesterday, the first one for the Conservative candidate in our constituency. Apparently they have little hope in our area although for generations until three elections ago they had held it with a massive majority, so I had a read about him to see what he has to say...

He's a former Olympic rower, a team mate of James Cracknell, his wife is an Opera singer, he works for Bloomberg in the City of London and, heres the thing, he lives in London.

He knows about Wakefield, he's heard of Leeds but his family is firmly ensconced in London and I suspect that he sincerely believes that he can live 200 miles away from his constituency and deal with the minutiae of an MP's business with maybe a conference call once a week.

That was when I stopped reading, I think its fair to say that this will not be a Tory seat any time soon, Sir Donald Kaberry will be spinning in his grave.

Re: The General Election Thread : Mon May 04, 2015 1:33 pm  

Another useful graphic.

The last five quarters of the previous Labour administration compared to the last five of this bunch of chancers

Re: The General Election Thread : Mon May 04, 2015 1:37 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

To change tack slightly, I got a leaflet through the door yesterday, the first one for the Conservative candidate in our constituency. Apparently they have little hope in our area although for generations until three elections ago they had held it with a massive majority, so I had a read about him to see what he has to say...

He's a former Olympic rower, a team mate of James Cracknell, his wife is an Opera singer, he works for Bloomberg in the City of London and, heres the thing, he lives in London.

He knows about Wakefield, he's heard of Leeds but his family is firmly ensconced in London and I suspect that he sincerely believes that he can live 200 miles away from his constituency and deal with the minutiae of an MP's business with maybe a conference call once a week.

That was when I stopped reading, I think its fair to say that this will not be a Tory seat any time soon, Sir Donald Kaberry will be spinning in his grave.

Looks like a tory gain from the LimpDems down here for similar reasons. The incumbent is retiring and the LimpDems have replaced him with a jobbing ex-MP who lost his seat in 2010. The tories have gone for a local bloke, well-known in the area and a mile away from their 2010 candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Yes she is the sister of Lord Snooty and Camoron once suggested that she may like to dumb down her name to Nancy Mogg, hoping to better appeal to the plebs. That's a PR guy for ya

Re: The General Election Thread : Mon May 04, 2015 4:16 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

Hi, I'll just give you a quick history lesson. In 1997 the Tories got voted out. In 2008/9 we'd had 11/12 years of unbroken Labour rule. So, even with the best will in the world and whatever fantasies inhabit your mind, you can't really pin the Labour depression on the Tories.

If you understand how the system works you can, which is also why we have the socially devisive "society" (does society exist?) today, but don't let History and Hypocrisy disuade you from trying to find out why things happened

BobbyD wrote:

Ah, hypocrisy. Well, look no further than Wallace, Balls and Burnham and their minions.

Oh please do illuminate me, and many others. I am always willing to learn.

Tories always have and always will play a dysfunctional version of Catchphrase!

Re: The General Election Thread : Tue May 05, 2015 1:03 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

The question was what Brown could have done to ease the impact of the banking madness not what the Tories would have done. Given you believe Labour to be so superior to the Tories how come they did nothing? Do you really want the likes of Ed Balls let loose again

What question?

What the Tories would have done is relevant when there is an election in which the Tories are trying to claim they are economically more competent than Labour.
They're currently like an on-looker at a fight shouting "hit him! Hit him harder!" Then when the person gets taken to hospital are complaining that he hit him too hard.

I believe Labour did nothing because they were taken in by the claims of the City, the financial sector (both national and international), the media and the centre-right that everything was wonderful and that the only thing holding us back was government interference and regulation. I believe this extended well beyond the financial sector too. I also think the government and the regulatory bodies didn't really have a clue what was going on in the financial sector.

I blame Labour for not regulating the banks (and many other sectors)during their time in office, no-one else. But de-regulation is not a purely Labour issue. The Tories are to blame for their periods in power. And my quotes prove that, even after the crash, they were wanting further de-regulation. To criticise Labour for doing exactly what they wanted is hypocritical in the extreme. That can be added to the Tory claims of Labour over-spending. The spending that the Tories would've matched at the time.

Given you believe the Tories are so superior to Labour, why do you think they would have done anything to stop it? Especially as we know they wouldn't have.

Ed Balls is rubbish, and a weakness to Labour. But he was Education Secretary

Re: The General Election Thread : Tue May 05, 2015 1:06 am  

BobbyD wrote:

And? It's like the captain of the titanic claiming it wasn't his fault because if the head chef had been driving he'd have hit the iceberg too! Whatever the Tories said is utterly, utterly irrelevant.

What the Tories said they would do at the time is irrelevant to Tory criticism of Labour's actions at the time?

Re: The General Election Thread : Tue May 05, 2015 3:59 am  

JerryChicken wrote:

To change tack slightly, I got a leaflet through the door yesterday, the first one for the Conservative candidate in our constituency. Apparently they have little hope in our area although for generations until three elections ago they had held it with a massive majority, so I had a read about him to see what he has to say...

He's a former Olympic rower, a team mate of James Cracknell, his wife is an Opera singer, he works for Bloomberg in the City of London and, heres the thing, he lives in London.

He knows about Wakefield, he's heard of Leeds but his family is firmly ensconced in London and I suspect that he sincerely believes that he can live 200 miles away from his constituency and deal with the minutiae of an MP's business with maybe a conference call once a week.

That was when I stopped reading, I think its fair to say that this will not be a Tory seat any time soon, Sir Donald Kaberry will be spinning in his grave.

Is Mullholland your MP?

Re: The General Election Thread : Tue May 05, 2015 6:03 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Is Mullholland your MP?

Yup.

Re: The General Election Thread : Tue May 05, 2015 7:07 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Is Mullholland your MP?

He is really good an example of what an MP should be about - dealing with local issues. Hopefully he will get back in. It would be a travesty if the fool the Tories have put up gets in.