Bolitics The New Condem Government

[Genie]

 

are any of the parties promising to scrap HS2?

Greens and UKIP ... Ed will presumably change once he finds out if there are votes in it or not

 

Tempting as it sounds i still couldn't bring myself to be a kipper. 

[tonyh29]

I just thin the current Gov't are terrible in their decision making, their execution of "plans" and in their intent. They mess everything up. They get everything wrong.

You've pretty much just written this governments obituary ready for May 8th.

"They were terrible in their decision making, their execution of "plans" and in their intent. They messed everything up. They got everything wrong."

Well if nothing else they got Brown out so for that we are all internally greatful

There was only one realistic worse outcome in the 2010 general election and that was a Tory government without the lib dems to ever so slightly keep them in check.

Gordon Brown wasn't a very good PM and the chances are had he stayed in power he still wouldn't have been. However I am 100% convinced that he wouldn't have overseen the giving out of a double kicking to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society that this mob has dished out. They have been hit both in the pocket and by the destruction of the public services they more than most rely on. They have said it was done in the name of austerity and for the good of our economic future. The reality is it was done as it is simply what the Tories have always done and to put frankly anyone who supports that should hang there heads in shame as their should be no place for such vindictive ideologies in this country.

Surprised you are able to see the monitor to type that what with your head hanging in shame for the deaths of tens / hundred of thousands in Iraq

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

 

 

are any of the parties promising to scrap HS2?

Greens and UKIP ... Ed will presumably change once he finds out if there are votes in it or not

 

Tempting as it sounds i still couldn't bring myself to be a kipper. 

 

 

There was an interview with the Green leader on TV yesterday,  they are basically insane.   Open borders and its OK to be in ISIS,  no Armed forces to speak of either but the best one is to change some military sectors to produce things like windmills etc.  

[MakemineVanilla]

 

 

 

are any of the parties promising to scrap HS2?

Greens and UKIP ... Ed will presumably change once he finds out if there are votes in it or not

 

Tempting as it sounds i still couldn't bring myself to be a kipper. 

 

 

There was an interview with the Green leader on TV yesterday,  they are basically insane.   Open borders and its OK to be in ISIS,  no Armed forces to speak of either but the best one is to change some military sectors to produce things like windmills etc.  

 

 

[Jon]

 

 

 

 

are any of the parties promising to scrap HS2?

Greens and UKIP ... Ed will presumably change once he finds out if there are votes in it or not

 

Tempting as it sounds i still couldn't bring myself to be a kipper. 

 

 

There was an interview with the Green leader on TV yesterday,  they are basically insane.   Open borders and its OK to be in ISIS,  no Armed forces to speak of either but the best one is to change some military sectors to produce things like windmills etc.  

 

 

 

Certainly a tough grilling, and Neill did his job (or rather the researchers did their job) and picked out some of the more 'radical' of the Green policies. I think, given their current position and status in British politics, that their is very little prospect (sadly) of many of their policies being adopted. But I admire their philosophy and beliefs. I do think they'd do well to rethink 1 or 2 policy areas, sure, but then again the same could be said of all parties - it's very rare for a supporter to agree 100% with all of their parties proposals. 

 

I'll still be voting for them, and hope that in the event of a coalition government from the left, that they'd be able to exert some influence on policy, though they are unlikely to get enough H of C seats to do that in all honesty. That's why they can have more radical ideas though - they're not actually going to running the country in 6 months time. At best, they'll have 2 to 3 MP's after the election. They might have none! That universal allowance thing seems to me to be the biggest headscratcher. Not sure where they've come up with that from TBH!

[Awol]

Interesting Jon, when I linked to an article a few days ago highlighting the exact issues she was totally skewered on they were dismissed by Blandy and yourself as rubbish.

The Greens are nice and friendly but ultimately bonkers, as that interview clearly illustrates.

[Jon]

Interesting Jon, when I linked to an article a few days ago highlighting the exact issues she was totally skewered on they were dismissed by Blandy and yourself as rubbish.

The Greens are nice and friendly but ultimately bonkers, as that interview clearly illustrates.

Fair point. I did only do a cursory 15 minutes sweep of their wesbite TBH, and couldn't find many policy specifics, but clearly there are 1 or 2 fairly radical policies out there which I must've missed. But the only one I think I find quite bizzare is the Universal benefit one, and the raising of the income for it. It's aimed at some sort of extreme wealth redistribution, and has noble intentions, but just isn't feasible, sadly.

 

But that interview certainly won't have won over any wavering voters!

[bickster]

Exactly Jon. For example, I'd like to see the renationalisation of the railways as a part of wider reforms of public transport. I even thing the Green's way of doing it gradually as each franchise is up for renewal is the way to do it. It effectively costs nothing and a key national infrastructure asset eventually becomes wholly owned by the country again at no cost to the taxpayer. There are elements within the Labour Party who also favour this as a policy. If the Greens were to power share with the government, this is one of those policy areas that could be implemented in the spirit of coalition. The Green's education policy is a bit all over the place but their specific policies on religion in schools is worthy of support. I don't agree with the whole of their policy but they at least seem to have an idea of what is wrong with the current education model, so one again would hope they would exert some influence in that direction.

I used to think that a vote for such parties was wasted but if the rise of UKIP has taught us anything, it is that it doesn't matter if the party you vote for doesn't get elected, politicians and commentators do notice the growth of the smaller parties and that in itself has an influence on policy.

[Awol]

All critical national infrastructure (such as the railways) should be nationalized, the clue after all is in the name.

The tricky bit is how to balance that with the unions (fair treatment for the workforce in a monopoly system) and the implementation of effective management (not bring held to ransom by the unions). Far as I can tell no party has cracked that particular problem yet, but both sides of the argument tend to present the answer as a zero sum game.

[blandy]

Interesting Jon, when I linked to an article a few days ago highlighting the exact issues she was totally skewered on they were dismissed by Blandy and yourself as rubbish.

The Greens are nice and friendly but ultimately bonkers, as that interview clearly illustrates.

For my part, I suggested that the article was an unreferenced and innaccurate sort of rant against the Greens, which it was.

I've previously (albeit quite a while ago) said their defence policy is ridiculous and that as Jon says, their universal allowance thing is just daft. jon's post on them is pretty much the same view as mine.

 

Where they're good (IMO) is that they are genuinely, almost by definition, environmentally minded and give the protection of the planet we live on the right level of priority.c No other party does that.

Also, they're good on social justice and those areas. They again cover an area not addressed by Labour (shame on them) or anyone else.

 

Their drawback is that other than a very few people, they're, as you say, mad as a box of frogs on a few things. I think the interview their leader did will lose them a lot of support. It's not as wrong headed as some of it sounds, but enough of it is still likely to scare people off, especially when amplified through the right wing parts of the media (i.e. nearly all of the media).

 

I don't think the leader is up to much, to be honest. Still at least they've got one now - they used to think it best not to have one at all!

[blandy]

All critical national infrastructure (such as the railways) should be nationalized, the clue after all is in the name.

The tricky bit is how to balance that with the unions (fair treatment for the workforce in a monopoly system) and the implementation of effective management (not bring held to ransom by the unions). Far as I can tell no party has cracked that particular problem yet, but both sides of the argument tend to present the answer as a zero sum game.

Then it's a good policy.

I don't think it's a problem, personally. There are plenty of places with state owned and run infrastructure, and it's all fine. Indeed most of ours is state owned and run, it's just other states that own and run it - German state transport, French state energy - Chinese Nuclear power stations next - so the profits from UK infrastructure go to the German or French taxpayer. Great, eh!

 

The key to industrial relations harmony is good management - keep the politicians out of it, get good managers and give them reign to get on with it.

[Risso]

My dad worked for the majority of his working life for British Rail and then the subsequent privatised companies.  I think he'd agree that while things weren't perfect under BR, they were a damn sight better than they are now.  I don't recall him ever going on strike, either, although I was quite young.

[Xann]

I don't think she's a word removed and I don't think the Green Party is made up of complete words removed either.

 

She's getting my vote.

 

The current path assures destruction anyway, so if it all breaks down, so be it - Hopefully something better comes out of it.

 

If I could get Boris's head mounted on a pointy stick during the confusion, that would be a bonus.

 

 

[tonyh29]

 

Interesting Jon, when I linked to an article a few days ago highlighting the exact issues she was totally skewered on they were dismissed by Blandy and yourself as rubbish.

The Greens are nice and friendly but ultimately bonkers, as that interview clearly illustrates.

For my part, I suggested that the article was an unreferenced and innaccurate sort of rant against the Greens, which it was.

 

 

I thought from the horses mouth as it were , we'd just established it was in fact accurate  ??

 

I have to confess I haven't watched the video but that doesn't seem to be a pre-requisite of offering an informed opinion these days

Edited January 26, 2015 by tonyh29

[chrisp65]

I haven't listened to the video yet, I'll do that later.

 

I'm guessing it's UKIP mental but for hippies.

[blandy]

I haven't listened to the video yet, I'll do that later.

 

I'm guessing it's UKIP mental but for hippies.

It's UKIP mental in a couple of areas - defence and citizen's income - the ones the interview man kept on about - the rest he ignored as basically non-controversial (and presumably accepted as likely to appeal to many people) - he did the right thing of a political interviewer in concentrating on the clearly daft or totally unrealistic stuff.

[Xela]

Greens sound more mental than UKIP. 

 

In all truthfulness, most people tend to vote the same way time after time. How many voters have actually changed parties from one election to the next? (I'm guessing VT posters in this thread will be higher on average than Joe Public in this respect)

[snowychap]

But the only one I think I find quite bizzare is the Universal benefit one, and the raising of the income for it. It's aimed at some sort of extreme wealth redistribution, and has noble intentions, but just isn't feasible, sadly.

It's not a universal benefit but a citizen's basic income scheme.

What lets the Greens down on this is that they've seemed to suggest that it may reduce with increased income: though they may just mean that the increase in taxes as income increases effectively claws this back but it does rather muddy the whole idea.

I'll have a sportsman's bet with you that this policy (or some form of it not too dissimilar to the kinds of proposals that you may read about here) is very much on the table being discussed by all parties (save perhaps the Labour party who'll probably still be concentrating on a job guarantee scheme) within the next two decades at the outside.

[peterms]

The basic income is an interesting idea.

The knee jerk reaction is to dismiss it as "just plain daft". More interesting responses come when people have looked into it a bit more. For example, when it was tried in Canada, in one fairly small area, there was shown to be an improvement in health including mental health, reduced spending on healthcare and so on. The results of the trial were locked away for many years, someone retrieved them, there is reluctance to process them and issue an authoritative report. There was a recent discussion on this in the Guardian. I have some references I can try to dig out if anyone is interested.

Employers hate it, of course, because it significantly reduces the pressure on people to take shit jobs on shit terms and conditions. Some of us think that's a good thing.

Neill's response was predictable, which makes it more disappointing that Bennett didnt deal with him more forcefully. She should have had better command of the figures, and not let him get away with his absurd patronising grandstanding.

She should also have challenged his mock incredulity that any social good should be made available to everyone, not on a means tested basis, which he seemed to portray as simply barking mad (more with sneering and dismissive body language than reasoned argument, but hey, it's Andrew Neill we're talking about, so no surprise). Umm, pensions, child benefit, education, health care...if there is no argument for a basic income, then what's the argument for education for all, or health care and pensions that exceed what people may have paid for via NI?

Interestingly, some right-wing economists are in favour of a basic income, though I'm unclear exactly which other benefits they see it as replacing.

But the arguments are complex, which is why Neill's typically shallow and sneering hitjob, and Bennett's weak response to his bullying, were both disappointing.

[blandy]

It's not knee jerk to dismiss their stated aim as plain daft when it costs 280 billion that simply doesn't exist and can't be raised. They'll have to change it. It'll have to become "not universal", which is something of a huge change. It then be a benefit payment to less well off people. Which will be compared and costed against the current benefit system. So after analysis, not knee jerk, it's plain daft.

Maybe I have too high expectations, but Bennett seemed unprepared, unbriefed, and dealt very poorly with his questions, which were reasonable. He was right to try to get her to say how she was going to make 280 billion appear, and to expose the inadequacy of her responses.

I like much of what the greens are for, and say, but they are daft and very wrong on some areas.