who are you voting for Amityville?

who are you voting for Amityville? — Evil

Amity-Ville not say.

I'm looking forward to a photo of Trump with his arm round Johnson's back. The puppet master.

Yeah. Really hoping for a damning, turning moment in this campaign; a special which nobody can ignore.
But I think the bastards are on their guard...
Look at how and what they hide. :rage:

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party?

Johnson is showing his true colour's in the scrabble to politicise the terrorist attack last Thursday. Blaming it on legislation brought in by the last Labour government ten years ago. No shame, no apologies, just promises to bang people up and throw away the key. Oh and more tax cuts of course.

Yes, well. Not a great surprise. Everything is Labour's fault, or Corbyn's in particular.
Despicable given the family's request:

Early on Monday, as the day’s front pages emerged covering a proposed Tory crackdown on those freed after serving sentences for terrorism, Merritt’s father David tweeted saying: “Don’t use my son’s death, and his and his colleague’s photos – to promote your vile propaganda. Jack stood against everything you stand for – hatred, division, ignorance.” — Guardian

----------

On a more practical, or tactical, note.
Question about voting, and potential wasted votes.

Nine candidates have either withdrawn from campaigning or had support from their party withdrawn after the close of nominations.
3 Tories, 3 Lib Dems, 1 from Labour, SNP and Brexit.

However, these candidates remain on the ballot papers in their constituency.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

Excuse my ignorance but:

I presume if voters place an X at their name, this will be a wasted vote ?
What action, if any, is being taken to inform voters of this at the local level.
It will be too late for any postal voters.

Some tactical voting sites have not changed their recommendations accordingly.

Yes, I should point out that the vile propaganda is being spread by the gutter press, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Sun and now we can probably include The Daily Telegraph.

Regarding candidates withdrawing, I'm not sure, but I would think, that if they won and refused to take office, it would trigger a by-election and it would not be included in the number of seats for the party which they represented. Or if someone else wins in their seat, it would make no difference. I have been worried for some time that the Brexit party would pull all their candidates the day before the election. But It's looking now as though this won't happen. Although if the Tory's do really badly over the next week, they still might do that.

"We're not interested in the NHS, you could hand it to us on a silver platter and we wouldn't be interested".

Trump.

"We're not interested in the NHS, you could hand it to us on a silver platter and we wouldn't be interested".

Trump. — Punshhh

:lol:

Trump: "I don't want to interfere in UK politics." .. "Boris Johnson would make a great leader."

It's hard to believe this guy is real and not out of The Simpsons.

Johnson said that the idea that the NHS would be on the table in a US trade deal, is Loch Ness monster, Bermuda Triangle nonsense, conspiracy theories believed by crackpots. Yet more contemptuous divide and rule narrative.

The "working class", deprived neighbourhoods ( traditional Labour heartlands) who have fallen for the lies and snake oil salesmen, will shrug this off. Continuing to believe that Johnson is a lovable rogue, who is giving us some leadership. It's not certain that they will shrug off Trumps duplicity though, because the right wing gutter press they read, has been anti-Trump up until now.

The "working class", deprived neighbourhoods ( traditional Labour heartlands) who have fallen for the lies and snake oil salesmen, will shrug this off. — Punshhh

Yes. I find this totally shocking as presented in the following article:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/dec/03/anywhere-but-westminster-vox-pops-understanding-uk-political-landscape

Stupid, stupid, stupid people. I despair :sad:

Regarding candidates withdrawing, I'm not sure, but I would think, that if they won and refused to take office, it would trigger a by-election and it would not be included in the number of seats for the party which they represented. — Punshhh

Candidates who have been withdrawn from their respective parties and are still on the ballot paper seemingly have the status as Independents. Therefore, it is misleading the public who wish to tactically vote for the original party, as stated.

It is totally bizarre that we have this situation...

Yes, it is difficult to understand why millions of poor and deprived people are going to vote for Johnson. The poor voting to keep the rich in power and keep them poor. I watched a vox-pops documentary on Chanel 4 news yesterday, where they invited 10 people from a working class area of Birmingham who voted leave. They were all people who had voted Labour their whole lives (they were all around retirement age). They were saying they couldn't trust Corbyn, they don't believe his pledges to rebuild the public services etc, because they have swallowed the narrative that we all have to struggle to get by and there isn't any money available to put things right. The Tory austerity mindset. Johnson was a lovable rogue who couldn't put a foot wrong, he was going to give them leadership. All of them said getting out of the EU was more important than any other consideration. And yet as soon as Johnson implements his hard Brexit, they will be hit hard with baked in austerity and exploitative capitalism, deregulation and stripping of what few workers rights they have left.

Another Chanel 4 report today is about the use of social media by Arron Banks. Apparently he was sold the contact details of all the UKIP supporters prior to the referendum. About 140,000 of the most Euroscepticsl people in the country. Banks set up Vote Leave, a political organisation which he used to groom all these people and gain access to all their extended contacts. Creating a countrywide social media campaign influencing millions of susceptible people. Once the referendum had happened he started a campaign of entryism infiltrating the Conservative party. Trying to deselect MPs who were pro-EU.

There is a row between the US and the French over measures to claw back some tax from offshore corporations. The French are putting a 3% tax on revenues and the US is threatening 100% tariffs on key French exports. This is going to become a big row when the UK goes begging for a US trade deal.

Yes, it is difficult to understand why millions of poor and deprived people are going to vote for Johnson. The poor voting to keep the rich in power and keep them poor. I watched a vox-pops documentary on Chanel 4 news yesterday, where they invited 10 people from a working class area of Birmingham who voted leave. They were all people who had voted Labour their whole lives (they were all around retirement age). They were saying they couldn't trust Corbyn, they don't believe his pledges to rebuild the public services etc, because they have swallowed the narrative that we all have to struggle to get by and there isn't any money available to put things right. The Tory austerity mindset. Johnson was a lovable rogue who couldn't put a foot wrong, he was going to give them leadership. All of them said getting out of the EU was more important than any other consideration. — Punshhh

You seem to be saying that there's no middle-ground between Corbyn's spend-spend-spend policies and the 'mean' Tories. It's not hard to understand why people don't trust Corbyn. They still recall the years of austerity necessitated by Labour spending from 2008-2010. Okay you can dispute the term 'necessitated', but people instinctively shrink from the country running up large debts again, and I've yet to hear Corbyn say how he will pay back all the billions he wants to borrow. A moderate Labour party might be doing better in the polls. (I always thought the wrong Milliband brother won the leadership contest back in 2010..)

I noticed one strand common among those interviewed in the Voxpop Guardian article. Namely hope. Voters voted for Brexit in part because they hope the change it brings will be beneficial. Okay they're probably wrong, but when you don't understand all the political chicanery and economic forecasts hope is a powerful motivator. Similarly with Johnson. 'He's a new face, so let's give him a try and hope', goes the 'logic'..

I'm not ignoring the middle ground, I just don't see it as relevant in this campaign. Personally I would be happy with a LibDem government, although I have moved to a more socialist position as a result of the damage done by the years of Tory cuts. It has become so extreme that I think Labour's policies are the only ones sufficient to redress the balance. My priority is to throw the Tory's out, Brexit or not, although I would prefer revoke, I would be happy with a sensible soft Brexit.

You mention 2008-2010, well for a start New Labour was Tory light, they certainly weren't socialist. Gordon Brown was spectacularly disfunctional, but he inherited such a poisoned chalice from the credit crunch, I don't think anyone would have survived long in that position. You should not understate the severity of the fallout from the credit crunch, it was the genuine cause of the circumstances which made the Tory's choose austerity. Also the debt has increased over the last decade.

If you listen to John MacDonnell, he is claiming that by putting money into the pockets of ordinary people in the economy, it generates prosperity and growth in the real economy, resulting in a benefit to all. It is the opposite of the Tory capitalist ideology of capitalism generating wealth with a trickle down effect, which has been shown to be an illusion. In reality people of wealth and corporations siphon the wealth offshore and make those at the bottom more deprived, with greater inequality.

Regarding the hope voters and protest voters. I know their hearts are in the right place, but they are mistaken, which is understandable due to the "vile" poison spread by the gutter press and nationalist populists, who have taken advantage of them.

Also the debt has increased over the last decade. — Punshhh

But by how much? If the debt increases at less that RPI it effectively decreases. Bringing down the deficit - and hence the annual increase, was as I understand it was part of the logic of austerity..

If you listen to John MacDonnell, he is claiming that by putting money into the pockets of ordinary people in the economy, it generates prosperity and growth in the real economy, resulting in a benefit to all. It is the opposite of the Tory capitalist ideology of capitalism generating wealth with a trickle down effect, which has been shown to be an illusion. In reality people of wealth and corporations siphon the wealth offshore and make those at the bottom more deprived, with greater inequality. — Punshhh

So putting money into the pockets of the poor aids growth but putting it into the rich's trousers doesn't? I think maybe you over-estimate the % of 'rich' money hidden overseas. Have you figures to back up your claim, and that of Macdonnell ? I think on the whole successful people want to spend their money, either on high-lifestyles or investments like property and businesses, both of which means it does trickle down.

Regarding the hope voters and protest voters. I know their hearts are in the right place, but they are mistaken, which is understandable due to the "vile" poison spread by the gutter press and nationalist populists, who have taken advantage of them. — Punshhh

Who are you to tell voters they are mistaken? Surely this high-handed attitude is one of the drivers of Brexit. I also don't think you can blame the media for brainwashing people so effectively. Given the preponderance of right-wing views among tabloids you'd expect 80% of their readers to vote Tory. That doesn't happen, so maybe they're not all as gullible as you suggest.

I don't have figures in ref' to John MacDonnell, I was describing economic ideology, rather than figures. Let me illustrate with a thought experiment.

Let's say there is an average group of people, one of which is wealthy (earns enough probably from investments, that they can save a significant proportion of their income). Now let's say the government gave each of them £20,000 and then came back a few months later to see what happened to the money. The people who are not wealthy would probably spend the money in short order in their local economy, probably on a broad range of products and services. The wealthy person would probably put it in a savings account, or if they are clued up, some kind of investment designed to avoid capital gains tax and then forget about it. This person wouldn't spend any more than they were going to before they received the money, as they already have all the money they need for day to day living costs. Like any of our 150 billionaires for example.
I expect I don't need to describe the ways in which corporations move wealth offshore, as this is well documented.

I apologise for my strong language in regard of the vox-pop people. I do talk about this a lot and my language has become more direct. What I mean by them being mistaken, is that many of them think that voting in that way their circumstances will somehow improve. This is where I suggest they are mistaken, simply because a Tory Brexit will evidently not improve their circumstances. Also, I am saying that the right wing media and populists convinced them to vote to leave the EU, not to vote Tory. They are now voting Tory to get Brexit done, because this same media has told them that democracy would be broken if it does not happen.

The wealthy person would probably put it in a savings account, or if they are clued up, some kind of investment designed to avoid capital gains tax and then forget about it. This person wouldn't spend any more than they were going to before they received the money, as they already have all the money they need for day to day living costs. Like any of our 150 billionaires for example. — Punshhh

I suggest you talk to your friends and ask them what'd they'd do if their salaries suddenly doubled. I think they'd be talking about new cars, houses, buy-to-let investment, long-haul holidays, maybe even private schools; before they got around to offshoring any of their extra money. Who do you think keeps luxury brands afloat. Yes the ultra-rich may go that way, but I think only a small proportion of their income would go to tax havens, most of their wealth will be in property and shares. Not that I've any evidence - but then who has, either way?

I also think when the average/poorer person spends their gift money from MacDonnell on everyday products and services, a proportion of that money ends up in the hands of your rich 5%, because they own all the companies and take profits, dividends etc. How do you think they got rich? So Labour's attempted wealth-redistribution is not as easy as it seems. The only way to avoid this trickle-up effect is communism..

On a more Brexitey note I see the Brexit Party MEPs are deserting Farage's sinking ship - polling now 2-3%. He explains: " well, they're ex-Tories so it's not surprising." How many of his crew aren't ex-Tories? As I guessed, the Tories are mopping up the Leave vote..

I suggest you talk to your friends and ask them what'd they'd do if their salaries suddenly doubled. I think they'd be talking about new cars, houses, buy-to-let investment, long-haul holidays, maybe even private schools; before they got around to offshoring any of their extra money.

I was talking about people further up the wealth scale, there are 850,000 millionaires in the UK, (if you include property assets 3.6 million). I don't dispute your point here, also I think that most of the creaming off of wealth is done by corporations*.

Who do you think keeps luxury brands afloat. Yes the ultra-rich may go that way, but I think only a small proportion of their income would go to tax havens, most of their wealth will be in property and shares. Not that I've any evidence - but then who has, either way?

Again I don't dispute this, but what I want to focus on is where money is taken out of the real economy for a period of time. For example, a lot of money goes into property, which then sits there for a long time, rather than being spent on products and services provided by small businesses, or in the local economy. The high house prices are due to other issues, where insufficient houses have been built for decades. The selling off of council houses without replacing the stock. Such failings in the market and state provision has caused a property price bubble, which brings a whole host of problems with it. Or in my example in my previous post, the wealthy person doesn't spend the money, it sits in a bank account, again it is not being used in the real economy.
Another problem in the real economy is the way in which the government bailed out the banks in 2008 and then spent the next 10years making the poor and disadvantaged in the country pay for it with crippling austerity. Whether austerity was required or not, it starved the real economy of money.

How do you think they got rich? So Labour's attempted wealth-redistribution is not as easy as it seems. The only way to avoid this trickle-up effect is communism..

No, that is not what is being proposed. What is being proposed is a larger Social Democratic State like the Northern European countries.

What I think is important is what I call, the money go round, circulating around the real economy alongside a sensible public provision of essential services.

On a more Brexitey note I see the Brexit Party MEPs are deserting Farage's sinking ship - polling now 2-3%. He explains: " well, they're ex-Tories so it's not surprising." How many of his crew aren't ex-Tories? As I guessed, the Tories are mopping up the Leave vote..

Yes, you were correct, I don't think Farage will withdraw though**, which was my fear. Interestingly the squeeze on the Brexit party seems to have gone as far as it can now. While the Labour squeeze on the Lib Dems does seem to be continuing, or at least, there is some more slack to take up. Not to mention the effect of tactical voting, which is difficult to gauge.

*an interesting development in the NATO summit, was the row between France and the US over clawing taxes off the large internet corporations. France is going to impose 3% and in return the US is threatening 100% tariffs on key French exports. The UK will get mired in this row from a far weaker position when begging for a US trade deal.

** due to the amount of money the Brexit party has spent on electioneering, if they were to reduce their number of candidates beyond a certain point they would fall foul of the rules on the maximum amount that can be spent per constituency. Meaning they could go to jail. Farage would not relish ending up in court again like he did following the 2017 election.

Again I don't dispute this, but what I want to focus on is where money is taken out of the real economy for a period of time. For example, a lot of money goes into property, which then sits there for a long time, rather than being spent on products and services provided by small businesses, or in the local economy. — Punshhh

I think this is a bit of a myth. For every rich house-buyer who sits on it as an investment, there's a newly rich seller. He may then spend his newly aquired money locally.. A house as an investment is no different to any other investment - the investor spends his cash to buy it. I think the problem is if such properties are left unoccupied, then they are effectively being taken out of the housing stock, but aside from a few millionaires' pads owned by russian oligarchs in London, is this is a big problem?

What is being proposed is a larger Social Democratic State like the Northern European countries. — Punshhh

What does this mean? For all the talk of nationalising rail, mail, power, broadband etc, whose profits will be added to govt coffers and redistributed, where does the extra money come from? Higher taxation for the rich will produce some cash, but that's more redistribution.. Any extra has to come from borrowing or better productivity. Simply using tax revenue to fund large inefficient public monopolies has never produced wealth on the past and there' s no reason why it will in the future. What it probably will produce is inflation..

An interesting development in the NATO summit, was the row between France and the US over clawing taxes off the large internet corporations. France is going to impose 3% and in return the US is threatening 100% tariffs on key French exports. The UK will get mired in this row from a far weaker position when begging for a US trade deal. — Punshhh

Absolutely. I'm surprised the EU doesnt act as a whole to apply these taxes. It would thus be strong enough for Trump to think twice. The UK - whose exports to the US are twice theirs to us, will be a sitting duck for this kind of pressure. Scotch whisky I think was mentioned by Trump..

I don't think you are considering the problems in the housing market. There are many as I mentioned in my last post. For example, a whole generation coming of age for whom home ownership is an unobtainable dream (unless they are fortunate enough to inherit while still young, or their parents help them out), while they are having to spend a large proportion of their income on rent. I'm not going to get into this here, but bring it back to my initial point. The wealth sitting in the inflated house values is a form of congestion, like our roads, or like being obese. It ceases to be a dynamic aspect of a healthy real economy, but starts to become one of the problems holding it back. And while we continue to fail to address the lack of house building which has caused it, it is only going to get worse. This is just one of the economic issues presided over by the Tory's, as I mentioned before, resulting in real poverty and deprived neighbourhoods and an increase in the social divide between the rich and the poor.

To address the issue of privatisation, I had already pointed out that the privatisation of essential services undertaken by the Tory's, is not a pretty picture and does not insulate the provision from capitalist profiteering, exploitation and cherry picking. I agree that nationalised provision can become inefficient, but that is only really a management issue and is free of those capitalist issues. I agree it does require a capital investment to bring them back into public ownership. But this along with the other capital investment proposed by the Labour Party, is not funded from tax provision, but rather by issuing government bonds, a one off capital investment. The 86 billion day to day running costs of the economy which would be paid for by tax receipts has been fully costed." Large inefficient public monopolies" would not be there to generate wealth, they are there to provide essential services, like water, power and travel infrastructure.

In reality the economics of this is a large complex subject, we could easily stray into deep water.

Bringing it back to Brexit, it turns out there is going to be a border down the Irish Sea, according to Johnson there is nothing to see here, just get it done.

The wealth sitting in the inflated house values is a form of congestion, like our roads, or like being obese. It ceases to be a dynamic aspect of a healthy real economy, but starts to become one of the problems holding it back. And while we continue to fail to address the lack of house building which has caused it, it is only going to get worse. — Punshhh

I agree of course, the cause of the property jam is lack of new affordable housing, and I'm all for spending on new council housing. The fact that people's houses are worth much more than 20 years ago makes housing unaffordable to the young I agree. But I don't see your point that the wealth in housing is thus tied up and so not available to the 'real' economy any more than it was in the past. A lot of the added wealth is paper-wealth - ie simply extra value added to assets already owned. It's not as if people have had to make themselves penniless to afford their homes so they can't afford anything else. If we had a property price fall and serious problems with negative equity, preventing those with large mortgages from selling, then yes, that asset value would be trapped. But we don't, so it isn't.

I agree that nationalised provision can become inefficient, but that is only really a management issue and is free of those capitalist issues. — Punshhh

The issue with public ownership is as much an inevitable lack of funding when times are hard as inefficiency. The NHS is always underfunded, as were the railways before privatistion. I'm not advocating privatisation of either, but I think expecting nationalisation to improve them economically is wishful thinking.

But this along with the other capital investment proposed by the Labour Party, is not funded from tax provision, but rather by issuing government bonds, a one off capital investment. — Punshhh

This is just the govt borrowing money on the markets, and having to repay interest to bond holders for however many years the bonds last. And then, finally, the capital. It increases the national debt - I think by £100 billion per year under Corbyn's plan. So that's over 25% extra in debt and debt repayment costs in 5 years.

Countries with highest debt to GDP ratios

The higher the UK's debt and debt-to-GDP ratio, the lower it will be rated by agencies, and the more interest the bond holders will want for their UK investments. It's already 88% (see graph above). After 5 years of Labour it would be around 110%. We'd almost be up there with basket cases like Italy and Portugal.. And if all the borrowed money is spent on infrastructure and extra public servants how does it expand the economy by enough to repay the loans?

You make good points, but as I said, we are opening up a big debate/can of worms here and could spend a while playing ping pong. I will reply to your two main points and then I think we should go back to the subject. On housing, it is a liability because it is a bubble (as you say, it is only on paper) and due to issues like housing essential workers in cities etc, it becomes an unnecessary impediment. Also the amount of money made by banks such as Santander on unnecessary high mortgages, is like a tax on a shortage of housing.

The debt you mention does not factor in the growth of the real economy intended by Labour, which as I have pointed out is quite disfunctional at the moment. Also it may be appropriate to raise taxes for the good of the country.

The debt you mention does not factor in the growth of the real economy intended by Labour, which as I have pointed out is quite disfunctional at the moment. Also it may be appropriate to raise taxes for the good of the country. — Punshhh

Extra economy growth will be required to pay off all that extra debt.. Not being an economist I can't quantify the details, but forecasters have thrown doubt on both Tory and Labour sums..

I do agree with tax raises to offset growing inequality. I'd raise the National Insurance Ceiling. No-one ever seems to admit that NI is just another sort of income tax these days. Although Boris is to raise the lower limit I think, and not before time.

But generally the election campaigning energy seems all used up and we're just drifting towards polling day. I think because the main parties have concentrated on their key messages everyone's getting bored with them..

Yes, the election messages are out there now, it's only slip ups that we're looking out for. Johnson nearly got caught using the word "coloured" the other day(in reference to immigrants) but it turned out he actually said "talented", but the recording was ambiguous. Interestingly, his petulant behaviour in the leaders debate on Friday didn't fall into this category. He could still fall flat on his face though. I think there are a large number of undecided voters who will still be making up their minds. There is an army of momentum canvassers going around in marginal seats. A friend of mine is out every day in Norwich North and North Norfolk. Whether it's working is difficult to know.

Do you get lots of adds and targeted posts on Facebook, or other social media? I get about 30 a day, targeted for Labour, or tactical voting sites. I suspect that other people are getting entirely different messages.

I like the cartoon. Is that why you're called 'Punch' - almost..

I think there are a large number of undecided voters who will still be making up their minds. There is an army of momentum canvassers going around in marginal seats. A friend of mine is out every day in Norwich North and North Norfolk. Whether it's working is difficult to know.

Do you get lots of adds and targeted posts on Facebook, or other social media? I get about 30 a day, targeted for Labour, or tactical voting sites. I suspect that other people are getting entirely different messages. — Punshhh

Thee has been much talk of the Red wall - Labour strongholds in the north with a pro-leave ref result, and whether Labour voters can 'hold their noses' and lend the Tories their votes. From what I've heard on TV quite a few will, and I doubt Momentum's assurances will make much difference to them. The Lib Dems do seem to be suffering a bit from the cancel article 51 policy - no surprise to me, and I'm sure some staunch 'democrats' have already defected to Labour. Then, also, in safe Toryland like St Albans with a large affluent Remain community, the Lib Dems apparently have a good chance. My sister is thinking of lending her Labour vote to the Lib Dems. It's possible a late shift could shake things up - like in the referendum itself. There is certainly more scope for tactical voting than ever before.

I keep my Facebook details and links to other sites to a minimum, so get very few adverts and
forwarded posts.