The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[peterms]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The simple truth of the matter is that Labour published a manifesto for government only about two months ago. Wiping student debt wasn't contained within it. It wasn't part of their program for government, and 'we'll deal with it' really doesn't necessarily mean 'we will make it all disappear' - that's only one method of dealing with it. 

Here's a view on how student debt could be wiped away.

Quote

There was yet another article in the New Statesman today detailing a complicated sleight of hand fudge as a way out of the student tuition fees mess.

It is beyond me quite why something that complicated is required when the simple truth would be sufficient for any right thinking person.

Student debt is another set of debt that isn’t really a debt. So just cancel it all.

Here’s why and how.

The current system is a hybrid hypothecated taxation system. What happens is that the grant and fee system is administered by the Student Loan Company (SLC), which is essentially a government departmental company probably now under the Department of Education. They do all the administration of grant and fee applications. However the money is actually paid to the Universities by the Department of Education — and therefore ultimately by the Treasury in the normal way any government spending is paid.

The Student Loans Company is there to maintain a record of this payment as a notional ‘debt’ on the individual applying for it. And they increase this notional debt over time by some arbitrary interest rate. The result is a number on a sheet of paper that the SLC frightens the individual with on an annual basis.

The aim of all this subterfuge is to maintain a list of people who can then be charged a higher tax rate than everybody else. That list of people being those who wanted an education but weren’t rich enough just to pay for the whole lot out of daddy’s pocket change. The list then gets subject to an additional income taxation system of 9% above £21,000 earned, either for 30 years or until you hit zero on your notional balance, whichever comes first.

There is an excellent description of the system from the point of view of the individual by Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert. It is a recommended read that shows how this complicated system is really just a fancy form of tax.

So the poor avoid paying additional tax, and the rich essentially pay all their tax up front — avoiding the additional cost of the interest charges. Those in the middle have an albatross around their neck for the majority of their working lives.

The whole thing is a distributional tax choice to place the collection burden on the third, and fourth quintiles of the income distribution — reducing their lifetime income. All because they wanted to better themselves and add more to society.

So the way to deal with this is firstly to reveal the Noble Lie. Explain that when government spends it creates a chain of transactions that causes taxation to flow, and creates savings at the Bank of England that match the initial spending. In the ratio of about 90% tax for 10% savings. Penny for penny, each time, every time, for any positive tax rate.

There is no ‘paying for things’ in money terms. The money comes from spending the money, and in this case is already being spent anyway.

Then pay tuition fees and grants directly from the Ways and Means account, stop recording those as debts of individuals at the SLC, and preferably write off the rest. The result of that is a tax cut to millions of middling income earners and therefore a straightforward stimulation of the economy. Something it could undoubtedly do with.

Labour continues to tie itself in knots because it accepts the Tory framing of government finance. Education is the best way, and arguably the only way, a society can invest in its future. Labour should be proud to stand for that and show how the government system can make it happen for all.

This is a perfect example of how blowing apart the Noble Lie leads to benefits for precisely the section of society whose votes Labour needs to get into government.

 

[magnkarl]

Over the last 24 hours the old Corbyn that fumbled all over the place seems back. Firstly, he's pissed off the students he managed to convert based on his very weak language regarding "dealing with" student loans - when in fact he's got no answer for them. Secondly he's said that he'll take the UK out of EU and the single market were he to be in power. How many voters from London and other big cities will be disappointed in that? I don't know but it's yet another thing where he's potentially set himself back again.

I don't think he quite got the fact that a lot of people voted for him to try and change our Brexit future. If anything he's made me even more depressed about the whole thing. I thought we'd have an opposition who would look at what is good for the country - but it seems both JC and TM are so far up their own &%! !" that they don't realise what the majority in the UK want.

As Jonathan Pie eloquently put it yesterday - Corbyn will be in his allotment shed for 3 weeks smelling his own victory farts when in fact he was no where near getting in power. There is nothing to celebrate, so get off your behind and oppose the Tories. Give us a decent alternative to what they are giving us, don't think you've won and be smug when in reality you are nowhere near.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

Over the last 24 hours the old Corbyn that fumbled all over the place seems back. Firstly, he's pissed off the students he managed to convert based on his very weak language regarding "dealing with" student loans - when in fact he's got no answer for them.

Sorry, but can you please provide evidence of this anger? 

[PompeyVillan]

I've got student debt. I'm not angry. 

Corbyn didn't promise anything. Labour didn't win the election...

And Labour and Momentum are offering an interesting strategy to opposition. 

As we all know, the opposition get a hell of a lot less screen time and column inches. So whilst Labour are still figuring as much as they can in that domain they've taken to a different strategy that served them well in the election. 

Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but lots of members are in 'election mode' and campaigning hard in Conservative marginals and the seats of ministers. Door knocking, holding events, speaking to folks. 

They think that face to face interactions are more powerful than social media or mainstream media. It's the Bernie Sanders thing. My only issue is if the Conservatives can hold on for another 4 years whether that many of those canvassed will remember/care/have the same priorities. 

[magnkarl]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Sorry, but can you please provide evidence of this anger? 

#StudentDebt on twitter. Apart from the usual Momentum types praising their holy lord there's a lot of anger about this. 

Some examples if you will.

If anything it's shown that Corbyn is just another back tracking politician that said something quite populist to grab votes. He reached the many, then realised that it cost too much and didn't own up to it.

[snowychap]

Are Matt Chorley, Emma Griffiths and 'proud to be british' all students that were likely to have voted for the Labour party on the back of an article in the NME?

Edit:

Matt Chorley is a columnist for The Times,

Emma Griffiths looks like someone who spends half her time retweeting sutff by Tommy Robinson or Paul Joseph Watson, and

'proud to be british' says this in their little bio thing: no left-wing nutjobs, traitors and lefty loonys [sic] will be blocked.

Edited July 24, 2017 by snowychap

[itdoesntmatterwhatthissay]

11 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

I've got student debt. I'm not angry. 

Corbyn didn't promise anything. Labour didn't win the election...

And Labour and Momentum are offering an interesting strategy to opposition. 

As we all know, the opposition get a hell of a lot less screen time and column inches. So whilst Labour are still figuring as much as they can in that domain they've taken to a different strategy that served them well in the election. 

Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but lots of members are in 'election mode' and campaigning hard in Conservative marginals and the seats of ministers. Door knocking, holding events, speaking to folks. 

They think that face to face interactions are more powerful than social media or mainstream media. It's the Bernie Sanders thing. My only issue is if the Conservatives can hold on for another 4 years whether that many of those canvassed will remember/care/have the same priorities. 

He promised "he'd deal with it".
With that attitude I hope you never complained even once about the Brexit red bus slogan.

Also no, Corbyn got a lot more positive screen time and the Conservatives got far more negative.

Edited July 24, 2017 by itdoesntmatterwhatthissay

[peterms]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

Emma Griffiths looks like someone who spends half her time retweeting stuff by Tommy Robinson or Paul Joseph Watson

Was it lines in her tweets like "these backward nations, whose opportunist migrant vermin are flooding Europe" that leads you to suspect she may not be a committed Labour supporter? 

 

[PompeyVillan]

4 hours ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said:

He promised "he'd deal with it".
With that attitude I hope you never complained even once about the Brexit red bus slogan.

Also no, Corbyn got a lot more positive screen time and the Conservatives got far more negative.

They're two quite different issues. The vote leave campaign made an explicit claim that the UK could spend an extra £350 million a week on the NHS if we chose to leave the EU. Corbyn made a wishy washy, ill advised comment that he'd 'deal with...' student debt. Which is now being twisted to mean he'd wipe out all historic student debt. Play along if you want, I don't think it's remotely the same thing.

For what it's worth, I consider my student debt an education tax, I'll not pay it off for years. But that was my choice. 

I saw a Conservative back bencher making the strawman/clutching at straws arguement to Angela Rayner in parliament. It's distraction 101.

During the election whilst media rules are different, we even hear from the likes of Plaid. They're back in their box until the next election now.  

Of course government figures get more media attention, that's only natural. It happened under New Labour too. 

I think Labour are trying to offer a different type of opposition because of this. 

[Risso]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

Was it lines in her tweets like "these backward nations, whose opportunist migrant vermin are flooding Europe" that leads you to suspect she may not be a committed Labour supporter? 

 

Actually, it leads me to suspect she's *exactly* that.  

[blandy]

I don't think it's like the Bus sign thing, but it does come across as something cynical, what with him now saying he won't deal with it (because of the cost). 

NME (June)

Quote

“First of all, we want to get rid of student fees altogether,” Corbyn told NME. “We’ll do it as soon as we get in, and we’ll then introduce legislation to ensure that any student going from the 2017-18 academic year will not pay fees. They will pay them, but we’ll rebate them when we’ve got the legislation through – that’s fundamentally the principle behind it. Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden.”

The Labour Party leader added that the specific details of his plan had not yet been worked out due to the rush of the snap election, but that the pledge was a priority and they were dedicated to seeing it through.

“I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage – I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly; we had two weeks to prepare all of this – but I’m very well aware of that problem,” said Corbyn. “And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it.”

 

[PompeyVillan]

Aye, it was daft, idealist perhaps a bit populist/opportunistic. 

I do find it rich that Labour are copping quite so much flak for something they didn't actually promise when the Conservatives, the barely governing party, have scrapped most of their manifesto policies. 

Which is fine by me because it was a disaster, but hey hum.. Right wing mouth pieces will say what they want, it's up to us to decide what their agenda is.

[Seat68]

8 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Over the last 24 hours the old Corbyn that fumbled all over the place seems back. Firstly, he's pissed off the students he managed to convert based on his very weak language regarding "dealing with" student loans - when in fact he's got no answer for them. Secondly he's said that he'll take the UK out of EU and the single market were he to be in power. How many voters from London and other big cities will be disappointed in that? I don't know but it's yet another thing where he's potentially set himself back again.

I don't think he quite got the fact that a lot of people voted for him to try and change our Brexit future. If anything he's made me even more depressed about the whole thing. I thought we'd have an opposition who would look at what is good for the country - but it seems both JC and TM are so far up their own &%! !" that they don't realise what the majority in the UK want.

As Jonathan Pie eloquently put it yesterday - Corbyn will be in his allotment shed for 3 weeks smelling his own victory farts when in fact he was no where near getting in power. There is nothing to celebrate, so get off your behind and oppose the Tories. Give us a decent alternative to what they are giving us, don't think you've won and be smug when in reality you are nowhere near.

Odd. You seem to imply that with this he has lost your vote. I cant recall you being an ardent Corbyn suppprter prior to this. 

[magnkarl]

50 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Odd. You seem to imply that with this he has lost your vote. I cant recall you being an ardent Corbyn suppprter prior to this. 

I'm never an ardent fan of any politician, I enjoy parity in party politics and the only way for one to balance out the other is a strong opposition, not one that loosely uses language like "dealing with" things, not giving out their position on Brexit until after the election and thinking in a very naive way that falling this short is any sort of victory for politics. 

If Corbyn hadn't been stupid enough to say what he said he could use his time actually forming an effective position. This week he's spent his time digging himself out of one hole and plopped right into the next one about brexit. If he thinks that he'll win the old blue vote by appealing for a hard brexit he'll rob Peter to pay Paul - he'll lose the young vote.

Politicians need to be scrutinised at all times, if you become a fan of any politician rather than policy you've lost half the battle. Corbyn, May, Farage, Nuttall, Willy Wonka or whatever - they all need to be held to account rather than gushed over. We've ended up in this mess because the tories have been coasting for years while the left have been too busy building a socialist cult hero to form an effective opposition. The front bench for both main parties is more anemic than it's ever been - when someone like Mogg or Abbott can get ahead something is severely wrong.

If you want to class me as anything I'm a swing vote. I vote for policy and not party and have done for roughly 15 years. It's the likes of me that will decide the next election - not die hard Corbyn supporters or fox hunters from Hertfordshire.

Edited July 24, 2017 by magnkarl

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

I don't think it's like the Bus sign thing, but it does come across as something cynical, what with him now saying he won't deal with it (because of the cost). 

NME (June)

'. . . Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden.'

I mean, he literally gives different possible ways of 'dealing with it'. How are we still pretending that 'deal with it' can only possibly mean 'remove it'?

People are being just outright disingenuous. 

[itdoesntmatterwhatthissay]

1 hour ago, PompeyVillan said:

They're two quite different issues. The vote leave campaign made an explicit claim that the UK could spend an extra £350 million a week on the NHS if we chose to leave the EU. Corbyn made a wishy washy, ill advised comment that he'd 'deal with...' student debt. Which is now being twisted to mean he'd wipe out all historic student debt. Play along if you want, I don't think it's remotely the same thing.

For what it's worth, I consider my student debt an education tax, I'll not pay it off for years. But that was my choice. 

I saw a Conservative back bencher making the strawman/clutching at straws arguement to Angela Rayner in parliament. It's distraction 101.

During the election whilst media rules are different, we even hear from the likes of Plaid. They're back in their box until the next election now.  

Of course government figures get more media attention, that's only natural. It happened under New Labour too. 

I think Labour are trying to offer a different type of opposition because of this. 

Don't worry, one thing I tend not to do is play along. In fact this is my wording a page back when I first suggested the bus comparison -

Quote

Btw I'm definitely being facetious, I understand what Corbyn said and meant.

However, In a narrative sense (when played out in all media forms), how is the vague 'we could' any different from the vague "I'll deal with it"? Particularly when it's not explicitly corrected
....oh hold on, both were! Many, many times! 
The bus continued parading (despite months of the media putting people right) and Labour let a misappropriation run until the media decided to hold them to account.

I will always support policy and so a Conservative saying stupid things will always garner my criticism; however, Plaid aren't back in the box, it's just the media aren't covering them and the majority aren't interested in them! 
You'd think at this point, the more engaged voters would start to be less impacted by the media narrative and find their own truths. If it takes Corbyn to do that then I am all for it, especially as he did correctly cite the difficulties and didn't commit to paying out for it.
But, for example, when I see people shouting about the non-electrification of train lines (recent announcement) or public ownership of utilities, I expect them to know why electrification could very well be a dead duck and what the challenges to public ownership really are.
 

[peterms]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I mean, he literally gives different possible ways of 'dealing with it'. How are we still pretending that 'deal with it' can only possibly mean 'remove it'?

People are being just outright disingenuous. 

Yes.  There will be a campaign by tory head office and their associated think tanks, ably supported by the press, to try to present him as having done something similar to the Lib Dems in 2012.  Undermining his support among young people is critical for them.

[itdoesntmatterwhatthissay]

Good god we're far back in here! Pretty amazing after the week Labour have had, though 'Tory bashing' is definitely the modern day fox hunting. Distasteful, but necessary for some to get through the week.
Anyway, great points aside, let's make another one!

Labour, tut bloody tut! 

Quote

On the other side of the world, there’s a politician who doesn’t seem to have got the message. As has been documented, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a lifelong fan of Venezuela. Even as it has become increasingly clear that Maduro’s policies have made a bad situation devastating, Corbyn’s support has not faltered. As recently as June 2015, just before he announced his bid for the Labour leadership, he said:

“When we celebrate, and it is a cause for celebration, the achievements of Venezuela, in jobs, in housing , in health, in education, but above all its role in the whole world as a completely different place, then we do that because we recognise what they have achieved.”

What they have “achieved” is the ruin of a country that could have been a global success story with proper management. And Corbyn’s policies, if he ever had the opportunity to enact them, would set Britain on a similar course. His original platform included plans to nationalise the UK’s energy sector, and though he finally dropped this policy at the end of September, he still supports the nationalisation of Britain’s railways. In November, the Labour leader’s response to the decline of steel prices was to propose nationalising Britain’s failing steel industry. And while Corbyn has never gone as far as to suggest price caps for supermarket goods, he has advocated for both rent controls and a cap on energy prices.

There are valid arguments for certain left-wing policies – a strong social safety net, investment in infrastructure and education, sturdy health-and-safety standards, and protection from monopolies. Venezuela’s demise does not prove that all state intervention is, by definition, detrimental. What is does show, overwhelmingly, is that it is easy to go too far, that private enterprise cannot thrive under heavy state control, and that governments with too much power fail to act in the best interests of their citizens.

https://capx.co/corbyn-looks-the-other-way-as-venezuela-self-destructs/

I wonder whether Labour will come out and talk about this one any time soon, or whether it will be another EU nonsense where they commit to everything positive but nothing real.

Edited August 3, 2017 by itdoesntmatterwhatthissay

[Seat68]

Could you elaborate on your outrage? I am not getting what the issue is, he praised a countrys welfare and infrastructure. 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

Could you elaborate on your outrage?

The outrage doesn't seem to be about Maduro, his despotism, the recent power grab and just how much of a dire situation it would appear to be for Venezuelans.