POLITICS CORNER

[plaques]

Bookies have no opinion whatsoever. They just make a book on people who think they know the outcome. The bookies win every time.
The old style Liberals lost traction because the workers finally twigged on that there was no difference between Liberals and Tories. Both parties kept them in abject poverty. Try reading 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists a novel by Robert Tressell. published 1914 but written before then'. You would be amazed at the inbred political ignorance and the similarities that you can see today. Not the best of literary works but gives a fare assessment of the living conditions of the day.
Aneurin Bevan: A Biography: Volume 2: 1945-1960: by Michael Foot. A different class of literature and a pleasure to read.
All through the book the Labour party is constantly drifting to the right something that Bevan fought against all his life. Typically the Tory right wing press made him out to be a left wing Communist, he himself being anti communist but a Democratic Socialist, something that most of the Labour MP's never understood. The move to more right wing inequality continues to this day with more and more socialist values being given up to private companies. Possibly people are sick and tired Conservatives V Blair's " New Labour" that they see no difference between the two and in their ignorance prepared to vote for a Neo Fascist party like UKIP not really understanding what it is all about. Of course the press will never enlighten them to what Socialism really means and will leave them to fester in their own ignorance.

[Tripps]

"Bookies have no opinion whatsoever. They just make a book on people who think they know the outcome. The bookies win every time."

Based on my personal experience admittedly in pre internet age, - I have to say that is simply not true. Trust me.

[Stanley]

Good posts. I agree.
David, whether the bookies have it right is beside the point, it's the fact that some Republicans have already written the first draft of a Bill to attack the Manchurian Candidate. Unprecedented. Tiz is dead right, the potential for 'events dear boy' on top of Cameron's Catastrophe are immense. These people couldn't run a piss up in a brewery let alone a country.

[Tizer]

So, the BBC knew the details of Trump's alleged misbehaviour in Russia weeks before he won the US election. They chose not to use the information because they didn't have any further evidence to corroborate it. That seems like a cop out to me. They could have run a news story which didn't appear to accuse Trump of any misdoings but took the line that they'd seen claims that this poor man was being maligned by a foreign power. It could have been a perfectly safe story for the Beeb but the newspapers would have done the rest for them. They could have done us all a big favour!

[Stanley]

My suggestion is that you read THIS, FDR's Inauguration speech in 1933 and compare and contrast with today's offering...... I suspect there will be a difference in quality.
May is in denial on the subject of the NHS.

[Stanley]

I noted THIS in the news this morning. It appears that our Leader is going to reveal all (well a bit of all....) on Tuesday but of course as is the case these days virtually the whole of her speech is leaked to the press beforehand. (Why does she remind me of the headmistress of a posh girl's school?)
We are told that she is going to 'take a tough line' with the EU. In the present circumstances, if I was in her position, I would start by putting the letter in and asking what the EU's version of Brexit was and start from there. This is what I would be putting to the public and the MPs. My reason for this is that we have no direct knowledge beyond rumour of what the EU wants out of this. To go at it bull at a gate by telling the EU that we are going to be 'tough' implies that she believes we have a strong negotiating position. The simple truth is that we haven't, we are supplicants and if the public statements made by EU politicians are to be believed, they are really pissed off with us for putting them in the position of looking sideways at what the effects of Brexit will be on some rather sceptical members of the union. I don't see any evidence of any thinking beyond money and trade. The EU is far more than this and in leaving we are rejecting wider cooperation with the outside world. It looks to them as though we are putting up a barrier between ourselves and Europe because we don't like them. This is of course a pretty good summation of the truth! Those who voted to leave, and perhaps more importantly those die hard MPs who still think in terms of Empire and the UK -punching above its weight' are certainly in this camp. My own view is that it is a completely misconceived strategy and one that will cost us dear.

[Tizer]

..It appears that our Leader is going to reveal all (well a bit of all....)

Is that linked to the news that she's doing a photo-shoot for Vogue to influence Donald Trump?
"The Prime Minister has secretly posed for celebrated portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz in a fashion shoot for American Vogue. Mrs May’s spread in the forthcoming April edition is said to be part of a charm offensive as she prepares to meet Donald Trump." (Daily Mail)

[Stanley]

I heard that report as well Tiz. Questions are being asked about how much pecuniary benefit she gets from favouring on designer and why this isn't mentioned in the register of her interests. I think that D Trump is a weak reed on which to base any good news about trade.....
From the comments I have heard I am not alone in thinking that May is making a mistake waving a red flag at the EU before she even starts 'negotiations'. This error is compounded by the gnomic statement issued by Hammond that the UK would perhaps have to consider changes in the way we trade. Asked to clarify his remarks, Hammond said: “We could be forced to change our economic model, and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do the British people are not going to lie down and say ‘too bad, we’ve been wounded’. We will change our model and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged.”. This is being interpreted as a threat that we would look at tariffs and things like Corporate Tax. In other words become an off shore haven for tax avoiders.
I can't think of a worse way to enter talks with the EU after Article 50 is triggered. (And remember we are dealing with 27 different countries!) My bottom line at the moment is that I see nothing in what we are being told that indicates any clear understanding of the basic rules of negotiation or indeed that anyone is taking any account of what the EU might offer us. The only concrete thing I have gathered from comments so far is that the Merkel position, that membership of the Single Market can only be continued if we accept the principal of free movement. As May has said definitely that immigration is a 'Red Line' she would appear to have shot her own fox. (Actually I think that our leaders are, in this matter, totally incompetent!)

[Tizer]

I heard that report as well Tiz. Questions are being asked about how much pecuniary benefit she gets from favouring on designer and why this isn't mentioned in the register of her interests.

Funny you should mention that - it's not May but Trump that's getting the most flak over promoting businesses and individuals. He's been telling the twitterati to buy their stuff from certain well known companies or brands because they've given him support.

[Stanley]

The more I hear about Trump from the media, the more suspicious I get. On the whole I still think he will implode......
I am dismayed by the gung-ho support the May/Hammond tough line is getting. I suspect that the prospect of the City of London acting even more like an off-shore banana tax haven is attractive to them.
The latest leak on the May speech today is that she is expected to reveal that the 'strategy' is a complete break from the EU. This suicide bid is evidently not a call for help, it is deadly serious! I believe this is madness.

[Stanley]

Well we now have the definitive version of the much leaked May speech on Brexit. See THIS for what appears to me to be a comprehensive report in the Guardian. My first comment is that we now know the worst!
I don't know who is advising May or what proportion of her statement is driven not by pragmatism but by the hard line Tory Brexit views that are being imposed on her as the price of remaining as leader. All I do know is that it seems to me to break all the rules of Negotiation 101. Imagine a confrontation in a school playground where a person perceives a threat and responds by saying "you and whose army!" I'm afraid that's how this strikes me. The correct response would have been, whilst having an agenda, to say to the other party that we have an open mind and want to know what was on offer given our withdrawal from the EU. That is the right way to do it, put the ball in the opponents court and get them to state their negotiating position. Once we have that information we can then respond with counter proposals and start the negotiation process towards getting the best deal possible.
May has not done this, instead she has fired off a list of red-lines and the threat that if we aren't treated well we will respond by deregulating the financial sector and encouraging them to trade aggressively. At the same time she is threatening to reduce Corporation Tax to more attractive levels than the EU and at the same time reduce taxes in the UK. In effect this is carte blanche for the City to expand its already thriving money laundering activities. There is the implication that the government will be passive about off-shore financial activities to avoid tax. We have often speculated why stronger measures have not been taken already but now I think we begin to see that a supine approach to these evils is good for the financial sector and it is they who are driving these policies. In other words, the UK is on course to be the biggest off-shore tax haven in the world. Who knows, this may have been the agenda behind the Leave campaign all along and perhaps even the main motivation for the Referendum in the first place.
Of course I might be totally wrong but this is how I see it and it does not bode well for the bottom 75% of the UK inhabitants. It is exactly opposite to the reasoned views of man like Piketty and Stiglitz and if they are right (and I believe they are) it is inevitable that the very structure of UK society will suffer and lead to very uncertain times.
At the same time, take note of the small dark cloud that is appearing on the horizon as the effects of what is effectively devaluation take control. The cost of living index has risen, the prospect of an interest rate rise has strengthened and the Pound Sterling is still falling, it is now at at it's lowest parity with the US$ since 1985. I have a dreadful premonition that we are going to see some very hard times if you are not one of the top capital holders. This Brexit Project seems to me to be a licence for them to gather in even more of the working capital of the UK economy. It was bad before but it will accelerate now.

[Bruff]

‘…to be the biggest off-shore tax haven in the world…’

Certainly would fit with UKIP’s favourite economist, Patrick Minford. He is quite open about Brexit being the opportunity for the UK to operate under WTO only, not bothering to strike any trade deals at all. He acknowledges that this will destroy all, and I mean all, of UK manufacturing, but that doesn’t matter as in time we will ‘adjust’. I am quite certain that the vast majority of people voting UKIP, or those non-UKIPers who voted leave, have the faintest clue that this is the plan. The dream of UKIP and the Tory right wing is just such a service based tax haven and beggar the consequences. The majority of leavers have no idea what is going to hit them. No idea at all. One thing’s for sure: they’ll blame anyone and everything other than themselves.

Anyone see the Mail headline yesterday? It was my misfortune to. It talked about a ‘free’ UK at last, given what we knew of the speech. ‘Free’ was in bold, just to ram it home. There’s a reason why much of Europe looks on us as well, how can I put this delicately, ill-educated morons. And it’s in that word free. What must an Estonian think of that idiocy, their country having been a part of the Soviet Union for 70-odd years? Or a Latvian and a Lithuanian? What about a Hungarian who when their country made a break for freedom, saw the Soviet tanks roll in? What about the Slovakian Palak who self-immolated when the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague? What would he think? The Spaniard who lived under a fascist until the 1970s; the Portuguese who too lived in a fascist dictatorship? What about the Greek in Athens who lived under a military junta, or the German who saw folk mowed down by machine guns at the wall that divided their city?

A ‘free’ UK? Idiotic.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I have nothing to add Richard. In my opinion you are dead right..... It is madness.....

[plaques]

Mrs May's no nonsense stance on the EU and Common Market has worked wonders, I think here that she is taking the lead from Trump in he's aggressive fight back and never give in mode. The (£) pound has 'rocketed in value, up 3 cents. Actually Mark Carney has hinted at an interest rate rise to offset the coming inflation and Trump has tried to talk down the value of the dollar all of which may have had a bigger influence on the £ than what Mrs May has said. Her speech has no value whatsoever in terms of enlightenment. Its incumbent on her to get the best deal and not to be pushed around. All I can see is that we are heading towards the abyss with the working man the first to go over the edge.
When the Daily Mail first opened its nickname was 'The daily Liar' perhaps people have forgotten this!

[Tripps]

Strange thing this interweb - seeing the reference to 'liar' above immediately reminded me of the spoof newspaper available in Blackpool a long time ago called 'Billy's Weekly Liar'.
I enquired of Dr Google and found a couple of indirect references. One thing led to another as it does - and somehow I've ended up buying a book called 'Forgotten Lancashire' for £2.80 delivered. Must get out more.

[Tizer]

When the Daily Mail first opened its nickname was 'The daily Liar' perhaps people have forgotten this!

That got me googling and I found this comment about the Daily Mail: `Nicknamed 'The Daily Liar' for misreporting a massacre of European diplomats during the Boxer Rebellion'. LINK
It also brought up this map: LINK

[Tripps]

I just heard the opening words of a Labour Party political broadcast -

"Hello, I hope you are well, because if you're not, the chances are that the NHS will not be able to treat you as they should."

I think this comfortably falls into the 'post truth' category. Recent posts on here would support that.

She finished by saying they would provide the necessary 'investment, to cure the problem - "and that's a promise".

[Stanley]

I don't understand 'post truth' and don't want to. That statement sounds pretty accurate to me in some cases.....
P is once again right. Only thing I would add is that the statement I quoted a while ago, "if you are in poverty now there is no way you can avoid total deprivation" is even more true now. There is a cliff edge and people are falling over it as I write......
Later..... I hear that May is peddling platitudes at Davos. It reminds me of someone whistling in the dark. Much is made of 'good' employment figures for November. How many of these jobs were permanent and pay a living wage? How many were temporary Xmas jobs?
How are they going to spin the announcements yesterday from HBSC and UBS that they are now committed to moving a substantial part of their operations to Paris and Frankfurt respectively..... How many other businesses are having the same thoughts. News also that Toyota are asking pointed questions about how their operations in the UK can survive Brexit. Are they looking for a similar sweetheart deal similar to the one we suspect was made with Nissan? Could these first signs of unease develop into a flood?
Meanwhile, the PM of Malta who is the chair of the EU committee supervising Brexit has stated unequivocally that the UK will not get any sweeteners to ease exit. Their reason is of course that they don't want any of the other 27 members to get the idea that they also could improve their position.
Corbyn shows some signs of animation in his exchange with May yesterday, go to it lad!
Later.... A stray thought crossed my mind which I think may have a bit of truth in it. We have all watched the large accountancy firms and lawyers making oodles of cash by advising their clients on 'tax efficient' ways of managing their income and I think we would all agree that this is just another form of up-market fiddling. Forget the arguments about the difference between avoidance and evasion, there is a very fine line between them and the effects are the same.
If, as I suspect, May is signalling that UK is open to becoming a haven for off shore funds this is an extension of this immoral ethos. My question is, what effect does this have on Joe Public? Does the shining example of the City encourage minor fiddling of taxes and something we used to hear a lot about, 'The Black Economy'? One thing I am certain of is that it will do nothing to reduce it..... Has anyone factored this in to their calculations on the effects of Brexit? I suspect that this iceberg may be about to grow and we will only see the tip of it.

[Bruff]

Boris’s crass comment about escapees facing punishment beatings as portrayed in WWII films is par for the course for him as well as for a country with an infantile obsession (still!) with WWII, sticking it to the square heads and the Nazis. More interesting is the notion that somehow the EU will ‘punish’ the UK. As we mentioned earlier in this thread some weeks back, this is yet more evidence for softening the public, aided by a mostly compliant Press, to view any lesser arrangement for us post Brexit as entirely the doing of a malevolent EU. Phrases such as the EU ‘bullying’ us, or being ‘bullies’ serve much the same purpose. Thus the EU (and by extension ‘foreigners’) will be the scapegoats once again for choices and decisions made entirely on these shores. This softening also explained Boris’s comments on the ‘absurdity in the 21st century of the EU imposing tariffs on the UK’. This is not absurd. The UK has decided to leave the current arrangements. Until and unless a trade deal is worked out, tariffs may apply as the UK has at a stroke become a ‘competitor nation’. This is how it works.

Still, I can bang on about this ‘till I’m blue in the face. It’ll make not one jot of difference. It’ll still all be the fault of the Germans. Or the Frogs. Best thing to do is sit back, point, laugh and enjoy the fun.

Talking of fun, it was great to see some Brexiters in the blogosphere getting into a lather over the Maltese President giving us a talking to. Just shows the problem with the EU they say, that this jumped-up ‘Council Leader’ can ‘tell us what to do’. The problem’s more with the UK (and as with all this, more accurately England). The EU I’m afraid forces us to listen to the views of the Maltese. As well as the Slovenians and the Estonians. As we say of our PM here, the Maltese at the moment are simply ‘first among equals’. In 6 months the Presidency baton will be handed to another. The UK really needs, very quickly, to grasp that we do now need to respect, as equals, the Maltese. That doesn’t bode well. There’s been a tendency among the Press here and some of our politicians to see other European leaders and civil servants and specialists etc. as somehow bumbling, third rate types to be mocked. Not up to it you know, not a patch on our man and woman (who are admittedly very good). Well, be prepared to be disabused of that. The leaders and civil servants, MEPs and Commission staff and functionaries of the other 27 are absolutely out of the top drawer.

Richard Broughton

[Tizer]

`Does the shining example of the City encourage minor fiddling of taxes and something we used to hear a lot about, 'The Black Economy'?' (Stanley)
That will sit on top of another serious problem for the Revenue, one they've got themselves into. They're shifting small & medium businesses from annual to quarterly reporting of corporation tax in addition to the previous requirement to do it digitally. The Guardian says: "Small firms have enough to contend with on a daily basis, and juggling the requirements to record their transactions and outgoings is hard enough without HMRC adding to the hassle. It may well be that the digitisation process offers new opportunities to simplify tax recording. But it’s the repetitious requirements every 12 weeks that have to be justified by the Treasury. Unless there are clear gains for businesses and not just for HMRC there will be a further erosion of trust and confidence from entrepreneurs in the willingness of the government to listen." LINK Some people are warning that the `erosion of trust and confidence' will also encourage more tax avoidance.

As for Brexit, I'm looking forward to the time when the `ministers for Brexit' and the PM tell the UK population, half of which voted to leave the EU, that they will soon have to do the jobs that the EU workers have been doing for us in recent years.

[PanBiker]

Showed a bloke who grows and processes carrots for most of our supermarkets. Before brexit 80% of his staff were what many would regard as "johny foreigners", mostly migrant workers who followed the crops, Eastern Europeans who came and picked, processed and packed He paid them a wage that they were happy with (about 3 times as much as they could make at home) and also allowed him to make a margin. This workforce is now dissapearing and he has been hard pushed to get British workers to do the graft. He now has to pay a higher rate and even then he has a higher turnover of staff which all bangs away at the margin, look out for the price of carrots!

[Tizer]

There are parallels with Trump's America. Are young Americans really going to do the jobs which immigrants have been doing? And what about all the cheap food from Mexico that Americans have been enjoying for decades? Most of their tomatoes come from Mexico, for example. There's a series of good Radio 4 programmes featuring Jim O'Neill interviews with experts called `Fixing Globalisation'. Put his name and the tile into Google to download the programmes.

[Bruff]

‘…..tell the UK population, half of which voted to leave the EU, that they will soon have to do the jobs that the EU workers have been doing for us in recent years.’

I’m looking forward to that too Tiz. ‘People of Lincolnshire, Come into the Fields!’ I can visualise the Soviet era poster: a head-scarfed Lincolnshire pensioner bent double in a freezing field of turnips somewhere south of Louth. A Spitfire flying overhead. And it will be pensioners: our ‘our new economic and social model’ will not permit retirement. One will work ‘till one dies.

There’s a serious point actually. No one appears to be giving a moment’s thought to how we will enable, house, and transport a native transient, seasonal workforce needed to pick the turnips in a freezing field south of Louth, or cut the chrysanthemums on the Fylde. Where will they live? In a camp? A camp we might call a Labour Camp? How will they get there? On special trains?

Richard Broughton

[Tripps]

the chances are that the NHS will not be able to treat you as they should."


The point I was labouring to make was that the phrase 'the chances are' means it is more likely than not. This cannot be true. This site has sharpened up my critical thinking skills.

[David Whipp]