Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 5:00 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

One thing is for certain anything that is renationalised will run at greater deficit than it does now. IIRC most of us had an option to buy shares in many of the industries the Tories de-nationalised.

The government can only cut the costs it manages - it hardly say to Barclays this is how you must run your company - that is not how it works as much as you would like it to.

Yeah but where are those shares now? Much like the houses they generously allowed us to buy, they are now falling into the hands of wealthy private investors.

The fact is, our railways are the most expensive for the worst service in Europe. Every other nation has got a state owned transport company which makes huge profits off the UK market, in order to subsidise their own tickets at home.

What a farce the other deregulated sectors are too. There is no competition in the water market, the energy companies rip us off and collude with each other to fix ever higher prices.

Time to take back control of our infrastructure in my opinion.

Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:21 pm  

TrinityIHC wrote:

Yeah but where are those shares now? Much like the houses they generously allowed us to buy, they are now falling into the hands of wealthy private investors.

The fact is, our railways are the most expensive for the worst service in Europe. Every other nation has got a state owned transport company which makes huge profits off the UK market, in order to subsidise their own tickets at home.

What a farce the other deregulated sectors are too. There is no competition in the water market, the energy companies rip us off and collude with each other to fix ever higher prices.

Time to take back control of our infrastructure in my opinion.

Absolutely if you want to pay more for your energy, trains and water - but that is exactly what you want - why pay current taxation when it would be good for some to pay more as long as it isn't me!!

It will be you - but that is what you want!!

Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:33 pm  

DGM wrote:

Bren Abbott

Top points made as usual. For people like Sal who lives in a bubble where every person has the same opportunity as the next person, and neither he nor anyone he knows is struggling, I can see why he'd be attracted to Tory ideas. It comes down to putting a few extra quid in his pocket above helping those in our society who struggle the most.

A well funded NHS, education, infrastructure, policing etc all help create an environment whereby entrepreneurs and big business can flourish in this country. They're able to take advantage of an educated, talented & skilful workforce, a healthy workforce, infrastructure meaning they can attract talent from a wider area, a safer and stable country that's adequately policed. That's the vital bit he simply can't grasp.

I don't doubt some people are struggling but does that mean that those have worked hard should be less well off to support that? What is the incentive to work hard to succeed?

All our public services are well funded - education is delivering better results than for many years so the talented are being encouraged - do you think putting 10bn into education will give you enhanced results?

Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:44 pm  

The Tories like to say how strong London's economy is and how great they are at managing the economy. Interesting then that in the place that is the beacon for their policies that the latest opinion poll shows that Labour has opened up a 17 per cent lead over them (Labour on a huge 50 per cent) and Corbyn is now seen as better prospective PM than May. If that's what the main beneficaries of the Tory economic miracle (!) I think those in the rest of the country who buy into the Tories bright new economic future for all need to rethink.

Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:56 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

I don't doubt some people are struggling but does that mean that those have worked hard should be less well off to support that? What is the incentive to work hard to succeed?

Because people are not 'struggling' just because they haven't worked hard enough in life, and to suggest that is the case is at best idiotic and at worst utterly deplorable.

Re: General Election 8th June : Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:04 pm  

headhunter wrote:

Because people are not 'struggling' just because they haven't worked hard enough in life, and to suggest that is the case is at best idiotic and at worst utterly deplorable.

Indeed - the Tory line is that anyone who isn't well off is feckless and lazy; which of course completely ignores those people who are struggling due to illness, disability or indeed the fact that they do work their ar5es off, in a job which doesn't pay them enough to live a decent life. It's a cruel and mean way to run an economy, and I'd be quite happy to sacrifice some of my income to rebalance that - the important thing of course is that the super-rich and huge corporations do the same, and aren't allowed to dodge their way out of it, or make sweetheart deals with HMRC because of their close ties to the establishment elite.

[Bullseye]

Re: General Election 8th June : Fri Jun 02, 2017 8:05 am  

"The undeserving poor" a convenient scapegoat and philosophy for the selfish since the 19th century.

Re: General Election 8th June : Fri Jun 02, 2017 8:47 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Absolutely if you want to pay more for your energy, trains and water - but that is exactly what you want - why pay current taxation when it would be good for some to pay more as long as it isn't me!!

It will be you - but that is what you want!!

What tosh.

Using trains as an example - the Tories object to state ownership it seems, but only when that state is the UK; our railways are owned by Dutch, German, Italian & Chinese state owned companies, and pay hundreds of millions in dividends to their owners every year - dividends generated by £billions of UK government subsidies, at cost to the UK taxpayer - and of course commuters, who suffer the most expensive and least efficient train service in Europe.

This stuff can be fixed.

Re: General Election 8th June : Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:37 pm  

The reason why these industries were privatised is nothing to do with efficiency, cost or service. It was purely to make national strikes in the industries less likely. That's also why they are messing about with schools and the NHS. All these industries would be more efficient, cheaper to taxpayers / consumers and provide better service if renationalised.

Re: General Election 8th June : Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:59 pm  

bren2k wrote:

What tosh.

Using trains as an example - the Tories object to state ownership it seems, but only when that state is the UK; our railways are owned by Dutch, German, Italian & Chinese state owned companies, and pay hundreds of millions in dividends to their owners every year - dividends generated by £billions of UK government subsidies, at cost to the UK taxpayer - and of course commuters, who suffer the most expensive and least efficient train service in Europe.

This stuff can be fixed.

So Corbyn is going to cap rail fares to start is that going to make the state owned railways more or less profitable?

Trenitalia makes about 3% net profit 190m on £5bn worldwide hardly hundreds of millions, same goes for Abellio, Go ahead made 57m of which 35% goes to the French etc

These are marginal businesses not cash cows that will swell the government coffers - it wouldn't take a lot for these to be loss making.