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

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

the Tories have just locked May into place for another 12 months.

Yesterday's vote just means that there can't be another confidence vote triggered by internal Tory party procedure for the next twelve months.

That doesn't mean that she is locked in to place as either the PM or the Tory party leader for the next 12 months.

I know we talk about her as clinging on and never resigning but I'd suggest that if every member of cabinet gave her the Thatcher treatment, i.e. walked in to one and one sessions and repeated the 'obviously I will support you but...', then she'd resign.

If the ERGs get utterly peed off and decide to throw their lot in with some non binding no confidence vote in the House of Commons (I don't know how serious that is as an option - it might just have been more unicorn talk) then I don't think that even she would ignore that.

[Awol]

15 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Yesterday's vote just means that there can't be another confidence vote triggered by internal Tory party procedure for the next twelve months.

That doesn't mean that she is locked in to place as either the PM or the Tory party leader for the next 12 months.

I know we talk about her as clinging on and never resigning but I'd suggest that if every member of cabinet gave her the Thatcher treatment, i.e. walked in to one and one sessions and repeated the 'obviously I will support you but...', then she'd resign.

If the ERGs get utterly peed off and decide to throw their lot in with some non binding no confidence vote in the House of Commons (I don't know how serious that is as an option - it might just have been more unicorn talk) then I don't think that even she would ignore that.

I understand that mate, but she’s as likely to resign as Idi Amin, and about as user friendly. 

I don’t buy the ‘dutiful woman’ line, she’s a Machiavellian maniac. The fact she ran a shadow Brexit unit in the Cabinet Office, developed an agreement in secret and totally undermined the rest of her government (including the Brexit Department!) was a deceit without precedent, equivalent to planning D-Day while excluding the MoD. 

She a nutter, a power mad, full-bore psychopath & Tory MPs will live to regret not potting her last night. (IMO, obvs.) 

[snowychap]

4 minutes ago, Awol said:

I understand that mate, but she’s as likely to resign as Idi Amin, and about as user friendly. 

I don’t buy the ‘dutiful woman’ line, she’s a Machiavellian maniac. The fact she ran a shadow Brexit unit in the Cabinet Office, developed an agreement in secret and totally undermined the rest of her government (including the Brexit Department!) was a deceit without precedent, equivalent to planning D-Day while excluding the MoD. 

She a nutter, a power mad, full-bore psychopath & Tory MPs will live to regret not potting her last night. (IMO, obvs.) 

I do get this but I don't quite agree with the last sentence or the Idi Amin angle though I feel similar to your assessment of the 'dutiful woman' line.

She may want to cling on to her post at all costs but if she actually has no power, i.e. the government's every turn in parliament is lost, or, when she stands up to make a statement on something, every voice is not only unsupportive but is downright angry then I think even she would go.

Whatever the truth of the matter is, I think it's somewhere between your assessment and mine and nowhere in that spectrum is good. Obviously, we'll find out more in the fullness of time probably beginning with what actually happens with the 'meaningful vote' business and around their commitment to the 21st January.

[bickster]

27 minutes ago, snowychap said:

commitment

[snowychap]

 

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

40 minutes ago, snowychap said:

 commitment

Please take it as read that I'm with you on that though they may still surprise us by honouring it.

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, snowychap said:

 

Please take it as read that I'm with you on that though they may still surprise us by honouring it.

Oh I was  committed to that opinion before your strong and stable response confirmed it, I look forward to listening to your's and everyone else's opinion before I make my mind up and make my opinion the only opinion to take this conversation forward

[Demitri_C]

3 hours ago, hippo said:

A government should be accountable - but this particular batch of Tories have so many influential friends that they are never brought to book -so it goes around - they can get away with infighting, crap decisions and downright neglect - they have rock solid support in high places - whatever they do they get away with.

Not arguing your point but Labour were fighting among themselves alsl. Both parties are as bad as each other.

We need political reform in this country  

[peterms]

It says Defra, but I suspect it's the ERG xmas do.

 

[peterms]

It seems somehow unfair to point out the serial failings of Draab, like mocking someone with a learning disability, but still...

 

[StefanAVFC]

The Tories have absolutely wrecked this country. Deeply divided and I don't think we can recover from this.

[Wainy316]

11 hours ago, peterms said:

It seems somehow unfair to point out the serial failings of Draab, like mocking someone with a learning disability, but still...

 

So the highest they've been were in the last days of Labour then?

[peterms]

4 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

So the highest they've been were in the last days of Labour then?

Just before the bankers' recession, from that graph.  What is astonishing is that ten years on, we are still below that point.  The slowest ever recovery from recession.  That is entirely down to tory economic policy, introducing "austerity" and cutting demand, artificially lengthening the recession as an act of political opportunism and a cover for redistributing wealth upwards.

[markavfc40]

They went a bit too early in submitting their 48 letters. Given what has happened in the last 24 hours, and the fact she has gone to the EU with no idea what she wants simply looking for them to drag her out of a hole, had they have waited they may well have ousted her. 

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

Just before the bankers' recession, from that graph.  What is astonishing is that ten years on, we are still below that point.  The slowest ever recovery from recession.  That is entirely down to tory economic policy, introducing "austerity" and cutting demand, artificially lengthening the recession as an act of political opportunism and a cover for redistributing wealth upwards.

Indeed. A truly unforgivable act, that has damaged the lives of millions in real and tangible ways. 

[LondonLax]

10 hours ago, peterms said:

Just before the bankers' recession, from that graph.  What is astonishing is that ten years on, we are still below that point.  The slowest ever recovery from recession.  That is entirely down to tory economic policy, introducing "austerity" and cutting demand, artificially lengthening the recession as an act of political opportunism and a cover for redistributing wealth upwards.

Stagnant wage growth has been a problem across the western world since the GFC. You are looking too narrowly if you think it is entirely down to UK Government policy. 

[peterms]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

Stagnant wage growth has been a problem across the western world since the GFC. You are looking too narrowly if you think it is entirely down to UK Government policy. 

It is a problem because governments have chosen not to take the action which would address it.

In our country, that is entirely down to our government.

Saying that some other governments have made the same ideologically driven blunder is no excuse.

It was, and is, a choice.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

Stagnant wage growth has been a problem across the western world since the GFC. You are looking too narrowly if you think it is entirely down to UK Government policy. 

Probably relevant to point out here that our wage growth since the GFC has been the lowest in the G7, and 32nd out of 34 in the OECD:

[Demitri_C]

23 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

The Tories have absolutely wrecked this country. Deeply divided and I don't think we can recover from this.

Don’t worry labour will win the next election and continue to wreck it.

[LondonLax]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Probably relevant to point out here that our wage growth since the GFC has been the lowest in the G7, and 32nd out of 34 in the OECD:

If you look at that graph everyone up to the Eastern European countries are looking at around 1% growth or less, so I say again, you are looking too narrowly if you think stagnant wage growth is “entirely down to UK government policy”. 

I’d hazard that western economies may not see rapid wage growth of previous eras again unless there is a technological revolution.

The modern globalised economy is characterised by strong growth from developing economies whilst they catch up in living standards to stagnating developed economies. 

Edited December 15, 2018 by LondonLax

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

If you look at that graph everyone up to the Eastern European countries are looking at around 1% growth or less, so I say again, you are looking too narrowly if you think stagnant wage growth is “entirely down to UK government policy”. 

I’d hazard that western economies may not see rapid wage growth of previous eras again unless there is a technological revolution.

The modern globalised economy is characterised by strong growth from developing economies whilst they catch up in living standards to stagnating developed economies. 

'Entirely' is too strong; in a system as complex as a national, or even international, economy, few things have monocausal explanations. However, I personally think it is beyond serious dispute that a] austerity was a political choice, not one dictated by economics, b] that demand has been depressed as a result, and c] that countries which opted for economic stimulus in the wake of the GFC have outperformed those that opted for austerity. It's true that no developed countries are growing at post-war speeds, and their wages aren't either, but real terms wage growth of 1% would certainly be better than real-terms wage contractions. 

As a side note, I see that Republicans in America have given their typical short shrift to deficit hawkishness that they always manage when they take the White House, and while I would personally find more deserving recipients of economic stimulus than military hardware contractors and the richest 10% of Americans, the economic effects of all this stimulus spending seem to be about what you'd expect.