Re: General Election campaign : Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:06 pm  

I think some people will be disappointed when they realise how centre-left the UK actually is.

Re: General Election campaign : Sun Sep 22, 2019 8:50 am  

Just what are Labour doing ?
An election is just around the corner and instead of having a simple clear message and unity in their party, they are making themselves look stupid and inept.
The Tories have been fighting themselves for the last 3 years and have sacrificed their Parliamentary majority and what are Labour doing ?

Re: General Election campaign : Sun Sep 22, 2019 7:48 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Just what are Labour doing ?
An election is just around the corner and instead of having a simple clear message and unity in their party, they are making themselves look stupid and inept.
The Tories have been fighting themselves for the last 3 years and have sacrificed their Parliamentary majority and what are Labour doing ?

Exciting policies:

Menopause relief
Take ownership of any house empty for six months - like to see them take over a couple of royal palaces
Allow local councils and teachers self regulate
Ban all private schools - Diane Abbot at the forefront of yet more hypocritical policies

Happy days this party really is bonkers

Re: General Election campaign : Sun Sep 22, 2019 7:52 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Exciting policies:

Menopause relief
Take ownership of any house empty for six months - like to see them take over a couple of royal palaces
Allow local councils and teachers self regulate
Ban all private schools - Diane Abbot at the forefront of yet more hypocritical policies

Happy days this party really is bonkers

If it wasn't so funny it would be tragic.

I am sure Casper the (not so friendly) Ghost will be along...

Re: General Election campaign : Sun Sep 22, 2019 8:15 pm  

IR80 wrote:

If it wasn't so funny it would be tragic.

I am sure Casper the (not so friendly) Ghost will be along...

They are actually going to appropriate all the buildings & assets of these public schools and re-distribute them - good luck with that.

Its a party that has completely lost the plot - what next campaigning to remain the EU and then trying to negotiate a with-drawl agreement with the very same body!!

Re: General Election campaign : Sun Sep 22, 2019 9:11 pm  

Any party with any remote bit of credibility should be able to destroy the Conservatives at this moment in time, show up the grifters, charlatans & liars for what they really are, and condemn them to the dustbin of political history.

However, Labour and the Lib Dems have been subsumed into the bourgeois society of the 21st century, a society so apathetic it would rather fight a war amongst itself than rise to an actual challenge.

Then again, how do you fight the likes of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? It seems the more he lies the more support he gets. I suppose that's the danger of having a media created entity in power. While ever the Sun, Daily Mail, Express and Torygraph keep cheerleading him, the readership will keep lapping it up, because they're too gullible, and too indebted to lose face.

Re: General Election campaign : Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:20 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Just what are Labour doing ?
An election is just around the corner and instead of having a simple clear message and unity in their party, they are making themselves look stupid and inept.
The Tories have been fighting themselves for the last 3 years and have sacrificed their Parliamentary majority and what are Labour doing ?

I can't disagree. Although there's not much for me to argue with regarding policy, the way they are doing it is embarrassing.

Re: General Election campaign : Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:47 am  

King Street Cat wrote:

Any party with any remote bit of credibility should be able to destroy the Conservatives at this moment in time, show up the grifters, charlatans & liars for what they really are, and condemn them to the dustbin of political history.

However, Labour and the Lib Dems have been subsumed into the bourgeois society of the 21st century, a society so apathetic it would rather fight a war amongst itself than rise to an actual challenge.

Then again, how do you fight the likes of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? It seems the more he lies the more support he gets. I suppose that's the danger of having a media created entity in power. While ever the Sun, Daily Mail, Express and Torygraph keep cheerleading him, the readership will keep lapping it up, because they're too gullible, and too indebted to lose face.

You beat the Tories by having policies that have credibility, you have senior party leaders that also have credibility - Labour has neither of these. Add to that increasing influence of Momentum and the larger unions in driving the agenda and Labour will never provide a legitimate opposition

Removing private education - what do you think the parents that do without to educate their children are going to do? More importantly where will Labour's front bench educate their kids.
Menopause relief - really, does this include trans women or those who identify as women all those close to the likes of Owen Jones?
Brexit - Labour are a complete laughing stock on this - a leader who simply doesn't lead on the biggest issue of the moment - Boris maybe an idiot but he has at least got a direction of travel
Remove ofsted - why because the teaching unions don't like their members being brought to task as to why kids can attend full time education for years and still cannot read, write or add up.
Revoke Clause 4 and take everything into public ownership - really many voters remember what it was like when the government owned key industries.
Take ownership of private property empty for six months?
£6bn of health care for the elderly - how will that be funded - don't say taxing the rich and increased CT it will not happen.

These are policies of envy - simple as.

McDonald is on the TV this morning - let's put £250m into a private enterprise that is quite clearly beyond help, it will be liquidated it is in such a bad state. I didn't hear McDonald crying for Carillion to be saved - electioneering. I appreciate Labour want to own everything but this would be a very poor investment and would be the tip of the iceberg.

Re: General Election campaign : Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:38 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

McDonald is on the TV this morning - let's put £250m into a private enterprise that is quite clearly beyond help, it will be liquidated it is in such a bad state. I didn't hear McDonald crying for Carillion to be saved - electioneering. I appreciate Labour want to own everything but this would be a very poor investment and would be the tip of the iceberg.

Labour are currently in Parliament blaming the government for the collapse of Thomas Cook. This does nothing to improve my trust in their accounting abilities. They're also trying to hint that ATOL protection & repatriation is a failure. It isn't by any stretch, although it's true some hoteliers have panicked and demanded money from guests.

In the 90s I worked for Airtours for several years both overseas and at HQ, leaving 2 years before they became MyTravel. The cracks at MyTravel were pretty wide by the mid-2000s and quite why TC decided to acquire them was a mystery when the best move would have been to let MyTravel die and snap up market share.

In my years in airline management I worked opposite and with TC in several commercial capacities, and watched as they bought up companies for inflated sums and then let them stagnate and wither. Co-op Travel Group, Gold Medal/Netflights (sold for a £40m loss), Elegant Resorts to name a few. TC buying your company generally signalled the beginning of the end, as well as misery and uncertainty for the staff.

The below is pinched from Frances Coppolla:

Thomas Cook was in a massive hole. It had a huge pile of liabilities, including trade credits, long-term borrowings both well over £1bn and advance payments over £2bn, and a pension deficit of nearly £500m.

It had no cash of its own - all the cash on its balance sheet is borrowed. By far the largest asset on its balance sheet is "intangibles", the value of which was impaired by over a third in the half-year accounts, rendering the company insolvent to the tune of £1.345bn.

The intangible asset is valued at £1.95bn in the half year accounts, but £1.5bn of that is goodwill which would be written down to zero in insolvency. It has nowhere near enough realisable assets to settle its liabilities.

TC was trying to bail in creditors without giving them a controlling stake. Creditors would contribute more than twice as much equity as the new owner Fosun, but the plan was for nearly all of that to be preferred stock, so no voting rights. And TC wanted new borrowing too. No wonder the banks balked. It was a pretty rotten deal.

Throwing £200m at this mess was pointless. It's a sad state of affairs and I have friends who have lost their jobs, but no-one is to blame except around 15 years of terrible execs at TC, who deserve all the flak they get for taking millions in bonuses out of a dying company.

Re: General Election campaign : Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:43 pm  

forgot to say...


Geoffrey Cox for PM