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

[blandy]

4 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

huh

 

I assume you're referring back to Labour's last manifesto?

Assuming so, "Millions" must be struggling with their electricity, gas, food and other bills too like water and TV. I'd be amazed if at least many 10s of thousands weren't, sadly, but I'm not sure that the government giving free power, and all the rest to everyone is a good idea either. I'd much rather help went just to those who need it, personally.

[HanoiVillan]

29 minutes ago, blandy said:

I assume you're referring back to Labour's last manifesto?

Assuming so, "Millions" must be struggling with their electricity, gas, food and other bills too like water and TV. I'd be amazed if at least many 10s of thousands weren't, sadly, but I'm not sure that the government giving free power, and all the rest to everyone is a good idea either. I'd much rather help went just to those who need it, personally.

The comparison with other utilities is useful actually.

Once upon a time, water was not provided by privatised utilities and metered. In fact, it used to be that you paid a water charge, which was a property tax; once you had paid the tax, you could use as much or as little water as you needed, at the same cost. You could be cut off if you didn't pay the charge though. Outside of occasional hosepipe bans, water is a 'non-rival' good, ie your use of it does not limit how much of it I can use. Something like this - 'non-rival' but can also be ended - can be considered a natural monopoly; however, the shift to metering changed it from a natural monopoly to a private good. (This has not been brilliant for consumers! England and Wales have some of the most expensive water in the world; tariffs went up by 44% in real terms between full privatisation in 1989 and 2008/09, per a quick glance at Wikipedia).

The broadband network is a natural monopoly which pretends to be a private good. As we can see, millions can struggle to pay for it, and many are excluded altogether, or can only access slower speeds, but in reality once the cables are laid broadband is 'non-rival'; my Googling does not reduce how much internet you can use.

It would be good for both water and broadband to be recognised as natural monopolies, rather than private goods. If we did that, the absurdity of metering would be clear; they could be provided free-at-the-point-of-use and paid for via a tax on the value of the property, which would be a (much) more progressive way of funding the service.

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In fact, it used to be that you paid a water charge, which was a property tax; once you had paid the tax, you could use as much or as little water as you needed, at the same cost. You could be cut off if you didn't pay the charge though.

This is still the case unless your house has a water meter. You cant be forced to have a meter but once you have one you cant get rid of it. Not that it adds to any side of that debate but I thought I'd just point it out

[bickster]

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The broadband network is a natural monopoly

No it isn't

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

This is still the case unless your house has a water meter. You cant be forced to have a meter but once you have one you cant get rid of it. Not that it adds to any side of that debate but I thought I'd just point it out

Yes, I see that's true (though not for houses built after 1990, which have to have meters); as I understand it, however, water companies have increased those charges for unmetered customers substantially in an attempt to make it clearly cheaper for owners to install a meter.

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

No it isn't

Well go on . . .

[blandy]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

water companies have increased those charges for unmetered customers substantially in an attempt to make it clearly cheaper for owners to install a meter.

Mines not metered and there’s been no substantial increase in charges.

[blandy]

Open reach has a monopoly on the core (apart from in Hull) and apart from Virgins fibre network. But after the exchanges or street boxes is not remotely a monopoly. Further 5G will render this discussion pretty meaningless in a relatively short time

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

Open reach has a monopoly on the core (apart from in Hull) and apart from Virgins fibre network. But after the exchanges or street boxes is not remotely a monopoly. Further 5G will render this discussion pretty meaningless in a relatively short time

I'm curious; why will 5G render the discussion meaningless?

[bickster]

12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Well go on . . .

My internet does not touch the BT Openreach Fibre network before you even get involved in the fact that a multitude of providors can access that network and charge you what they deem to be a competitive yet profitable charge. There are many rural microwave links now. there's the mobile phone networks. The idea that Broadband is a natural monopoly is daft. Multiples of networks, many more providers. It just isn't

My mate runs a company from his office in the garden providing Internet far cheaper than any of the big players through the Openreach Fibre network

I'm on cable in a village that has one shop and one pub and is surrounded by sea and fields

At work we use mobile phone sims in mini-routers for our staff to work from home (and that isn't that expensive at all)

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

My internet does not touch the BT Openreach Fibre network before you even get involved in the fact that a multitude of providors can access that network and charge you what they deem to be a competitive yet profitable charge. There are many rural microwave links now. there's the mobile phone networks. The idea that Broadband is a natural monopoly is daft. Multiples of netowrks, many more providors. It just isn't

My mate runs a company from his office in the garden providing Internet far cheaper than any of the big players through the Openreach Fibre network

I'm on cable in a village that has one shop and one pub and is surrounded by sea and fields

At work we use mobile phone sims in mini-routers for our staff to work from home (and that isn't that expensive

What proportion of properties do not touch the OpenReach infrastructure, versus what proportion that do?

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

What proportion of properties do not touch the OpenReach infrastructure, versus what proportion that do?

27% of the country's homes are currently able to access 1 gigabit fibre but thats combined between cable and Openreach (about 1:7 ratio in Open Reach's favour) but like Pete said, the current speed of the rollout may slow considerably when 5G is fully deployed

That also doesn't take into account the other percentage of homes on slower but still fast broadband connections

[darrenm]

In a rare display of rejecting People's Front of Judea politics, the left has decided to team up to take on the 'right' in the Unite leadership election

 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

In a rare display of rejecting People's Front of Judea politics, the left has decided to team up to take on the 'right' in the Unite leadership election

Doesn't that still leave 2 left and 1 right? IIRC there were 4 candidates, with three of them from the left. Also didn't Beckett have some rather sordid Union skeletons in the closet about NUM pensions or something?

[blandy]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

In a rare display of rejecting People's Front of Judea politics, the left has decided to team up to take on the 'right' in the Unite leadership election

 

They've been fighting (the 3 lefty candidates) like rats in a sack amongst each other, and if finally they've got it into their heads that Coyne will definitely win unless they decide who to oppose him, then that's something for the dullards, I suppose.

FWIW (I'm a member) I hope Coyne wins - he opposed McLuskey last time and was, how shall we say? manouevred out of the union, not for having the temerity to challenge McLuskey, oh no, perish the thought...! but for alleged rule breaking. Which is ironic when you consider where millions of quid of our (the members) money has gone.  There are of course Police investigations ongoing, I believe, in the Liverpool area.

It'd be nice, as a member if we were led by someone more interested in supporting the members needs than trying to control the Labour leadership and MPs from the back seat.

[HanoiVillan]

33 minutes ago, bickster said:

Doesn't that still leave 2 left and 1 right? IIRC there were 4 candidates, with three of them from the left. Also didn't Beckett have some rather sordid Union skeletons in the closet about NUM pensions or something?

I was assuming from the penultimate paragraph that an agreement had already been reached with Sharon Graham, but I might be reading something that isn't there.

[darrenm]

10 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I was assuming from the penultimate paragraph that an agreement had already been reached with Sharon Graham, but I might be reading something that isn't there.

Yeah as Bicks says, there's still 2 left candidates against Coyne and Graham is digging her heels in. I guess it's hoped she'll also see sense or she's marginalised. It's a start, at least.

[dAVe80]

If the left of Unite don't learn form Unison, then the left might as well give up. I know Unison was slightly different, where there was a Labour left backed candidate, and then a candidate backed my the Socilaist Party (plus a few other fringe groups), but they've ended up with a Starmer pick as GS, even though more people voted for left candidates than voted for her. Happened again in the recent Unison NEC elections, when the SP split the vote with their slate, for positions that should have seen a single left candidate romp home. I'm glad we've managed to avoid this kind of crap in my union in recent elections. 

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

I'm glad we've managed to avoid this kind of crap in my union in recent elections

Do many people vote in the Unison one? Unite is pitifully low turnout

[dAVe80]

13 minutes ago, blandy said:

Do many people vote in the Unison one? Unite is pitifully low turnout

I can't imagine the turn out would have been massive. Probably comparable to Unite. Those who make the effort to vote, and campaign for particular candidates missed the opportunity. I speak to a few mates who are Unison members, one of who I know was furious with them having two different slates, and not learning from the Gen Sec election. 

The voter turn out for most unions when it come to picking NEC and GS positions isn't normally massive. Unless you have someone who is particularly woeful, most members won't care. My union do have a fantastic reputation for getting the vote out when it comes to industrial action though. Other than the NEU, I don't think anyone has touched us in the past few years. We get them out, and we get them to vote with us.