The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[Xann]

To me it has the whiff of someone realising he'd been sold a lie.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

[Xann didn't say it but a mail columnist did] ....why is our current-account deficit with the rest of the world the worst it’s ever been in peacetime.....And now the remains of our steel industry are vanishing, not because nothing can be done (any determined government could save it if it really wanted to) but because we’re all still worshipping that free-market dogma that captivated us 30 years ago. 

That's bang on, that bit quoted. Never mind the Gov't spend v income deficit, the balance of trace deficit is an absolute disgrace, and something the tories are particularly culpable for.

 

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

That's bang on, that bit quoted. Never mind the Gov't spend v income deficit, the balance of trace deficit is an absolute disgrace, and something the tories are particularly culpable for.

 

are we going with the Thatcher line again

 

 

 

[tonyh29]

2 hours ago, Xann said:

To me it has the whiff of someone realising he'd been sold a lie.

Can I assume with your new found love of a Daily Mail columnist that you wont be joining in any future VT snobbery on what newspaper people read  

 

 

 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

are we going with the Thatcher line again

No need to. The current lot are worse in some respects.

[tonyh29]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

No need to. The current lot are worse in some respects.

that will be like blaming Brown for the global financial crises  ... you don't think the Euro crisis ( and the currency )  in recent times has had any effect on the UK ?

reading up on how to reduce this deficit it seems  one way we could reduce the deficit is by reducing consumer spending (i.e reduced spending on imports)  ..... yet I'm fairly sure previously you'd been advocating the "Balls " policy of spending our way out of a recession  , so you'd be against that presumably ?

of course another method would be the theory of Supply slide policies  , i.e the government could make it easier to hire and fire workers; this will encourage firms to invest and employ workers ... but I seem to recall you don't like that either ?

so Labour / Corbyn can have the soundbite on how the deficit is too high ...but they only solution they could offer seems to be reduce the trade balance by reducing the welfare of the country's population  ... I'll let smarter people than me figure out how that one aligns with party policy  

[blandy]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

that will be like blaming Brown for the global financial crises  ... you don't think the Euro crisis ( and the currency )  in recent times has had any effect on the UK ?

reading up on how to reduce this deficit it seems  one way we could reduce the deficit is by reducing consumer spending (i.e reduced spending on imports)  ..... yet I'm fairly sure previously you'd been advocating the "Balls " policy of spending our way out of a recession  , so you'd be against that presumably ?

of course another method would be the theory of Supply slide policies, i.e the government could make it easier to hire and fire workers; this will encourage firms to invest and employ workers ... but I seem to recall you don't like that either ?

so Labour / Corbyn can have the soundbite on how the deficit is too high ...but they only solution they could offer seems to be reduce the trade balance by reducing the welfare of the country's population  ... I'll let smarter people than me figure out how that one aligns with party policy  

Blaming Brown for the global crisis was got the tories into power and kept them there. it's not accurate though, you're right.

The state of the Eurozone hasn't helped as much as the tories wanted/hoped. Nevertheless plenty of places have experienced growth and been potentially good markets for the UK to sell to. And the Eurozone hasn't (I don't believe) been getting smaller - it's been growing but slowly. It's not in decline over the 6 years. The problems are home made.

What I wanted to happen was spending on infrastructure building - rail, green power, roads, schools, hospitals, infrastucture that would employ UK people, using things like (as is now relevant) UK steel, UK tarmac, UK bricks and so on. Not spending on buying Japanese  tellies and cars and PCs and video games.

The Gov't has made it easier to hire and fire. It's resulted in zero hours contracts and no productivity growth, which is not much of a surprise. People in low paid, insecure employment are generally not motivated to really "up their game" when there's absolutely no loyalty in return.

I don';t think I've heard Corbyn say any of your last line. I'm not a Labour supporter, anyway. "Ah But" is not the point of these forums.. 

[tonyh29]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

Blaming Brown for the global crisis was got the tories into power and kept them there. it's not accurate though, you're right.

The state of the Eurozone hasn't helped as much as the tories wanted/hoped. Nevertheless plenty of places have experienced growth and been potentially good markets for the UK to sell to. And the Eurozone hasn't (I don't believe) been getting smaller - it's been growing but slowly. It's not in decline over the 6 years. The problems are home made.

What I wanted to happen was spending on infrastructure building - rail, green power, roads, schools, hospitals, infrastucture that would employ UK people, using things like (as is now relevant) UK steel, UK tarmac, UK bricks and so on. Not spending on buying Japanese  tellies and cars and PCs and video games.

The Gov't has made it easier to hire and fire. It's resulted in zero hours contracts and no productivity growth, which is not much of a surprise. People in low paid, insecure employment are generally not motivated to really "up their game" when there's absolutely no loyalty in return.

I don';t think I've heard Corbyn say any of your last line. I'm not a Labour supporter, anyway. "Ah But" is not the point of these forums.. 

I seem to recall they also got criticised for trying to court India and China  ...plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

 

my last sentence couldn't be further removed from "Ah but "  ... they HAVE criticised the deficit ( part of my last sentence)  my post was a comment / observation as to how they could do that in relation to their other policies ...

we may as well end all discussion if Ah but is going to be the standard reply to everything (had I pointed out the deficit had been shrinking in the years prior to Blair's election and then grew under labours years in power , then that would have been Ah but , however I made no reference to it  )

[blandy]

Sorry, I meant the "the only solution they could offer seems to be reduce the trade balance by reducing the welfare of the country's population" thing. I don't think they've said or implied anything along those lines. (Have they?) But this is a baby eating thread, not a Mao loving thread, anyway, so I don't really get the "ah but Labour haven't got a solution" thing you allude to as anything other than ah but  

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I seem to recall they also got criticised for trying to court India and China  ...plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

In terms of "would you like to buy our industries and build our power stations?", then the criticism is valid. Selling of our stuff is what tories do.

[tonyh29]

16 minutes ago, blandy said:

Sorry, I meant the "the only solution they could offer seems to be reduce the trade balance by reducing the welfare of the country's population" thing. I don't think they've said or implied anything along those lines. (Have they?) But this is a baby eating thread, not a Mao loving thread, anyway, so I don't really get the "ah but Labour haven't got a solution" thing you allude to as anything other than ah but  

No , sorry ...that was me offering speculation on how they could achieve what they are saying (this week ) and not anything labour have said ...  guess i wasn't clear with that 

I wasn't saying ah but labour don't have a solution , I was trying to show there is a ying and a yang as per my previous comparisons as to what Osborne has done with consequence V what he hasn't done but that would have had other consequences ... 

It was clear in my head but that doesn't necessarily translate clearly when I put it into words

[Xann]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

Can I assume with your new found love of a Daily Mail columnist that you wont be joining in any future VT snobbery on what newspaper people read  

This line was put in for you...

5 hours ago, Xann said:

God bothering, climate change denying and conservative Daily Mail writer Peter Hitchens...

It has to be more 'Peter & Jane' than that, does it?

Noted

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

are we going with the Thatcher line again

Can we say Thatcherite instead? That way we cover everything since 1979. During the 90's, the colours changed but the ideas remained the same.

[Jon]

You've got him Xann.  That can't behidden like an offshore account

[OutByEaster?]

Not surprising -  Cameron Sr had a shell company set up for the purposes of tax avoidance. 

Surprising - they chose to name it Blairmore Holdings. 

Y'know, like Blair, but more.

 

 

 

[tonyh29]

20 minutes ago, Xann said:

This line was put in for you...

It has to be more 'Peter & Jane' than that, does it?

Noted

It doesn't actually answer the question I asked though 

[tonyh29]

11 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Not surprising -  Cameron Sr had a shell company set up for the purposes of tax avoidance. 

Surprising - they chose to name it Blairmore Holdings. 

Y'know, like Blair, but more.

 

 

 

Named after the family home in Scotchland ... Guess Skyfall was already taken

 

interesting response from Cameron today to Corbyns question though , if the leak reveals Cameron is lying we will be seeing Johnson at number 10 by the end of the month 

Edited April 5, 2016 by tonyh29

[Xann]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

It doesn't actually answer the question I asked though 

See Pat's ball?

[chrisp65]

the question that was put:

Quote

Can you clarify for the record that you and your family have not derived any benefit in the past and will not in the future from the offshore Blairmore Holdings fund mentioned in the Panama Papers?

the answer given:

Quote

In terms of my own financial affairs, I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And, so that, I think, is a very clear description.

Guardian

What are the odds that at some point in the future we will find our PM picking over the exact wording used?

Will there be some 'debate' over whether a blind trust he doesn't control set up by his advisers for the Cameron kiddies could be included in 'I have'?

Only time will tell I guess. Wonder how the likes of Peter Mandelson are viewing all this?

 

[tonyh29]

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

the question that was put:

the answer given:

Guardian

What are the odds that at some point in the future we will find our PM picking over the exact wording used?

Will there be some 'debate' over whether a blind trust he doesn't control set up by his advisers for the Cameron kiddies could be included in 'I have'?

Only time will tell I guess. Wonder how the likes of Peter Mandelson are viewing all this?

 

Tbf when the Guardian first broke this back in 2012 is probably when Cameron (David) offloaded his shares.

its quite a specific answer though so I can't see him getting away with the semantics defence if he's found out