That Manifesto is finally out

Legionreturns

...including a costing document which allows a margin for error of £4bn. 

Have to say, the speech was excellent. I wonder what it will sound like once the BBC have "edited" it!

Garthy

Legionreturns said:

...including a costing document which allows a margin for error of £4bn. 

Have to say, the speech was excellent. I wonder what it will sound like once the BBC have "edited" it!

After the BBC have edited it they'll say Jeremy has been eating pineapples, lots of pineapples.

I thought the question from the Morning Star asking what will be done about media bias was almost hysterical.

Nationalising the water companies- where is all this money coming from?

Fretwired

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

Legionreturns

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

Given that the Tory economic model for the last 7 year's seems to have been "decimate everything and then lose the money down the back of the sofa and double the debt" I don't really see how they can throw that kind of accusation. 

Lest we forget they've missed every economic target they've set by a country mile. 

As for economists, some may be saying that. Some are saying it's accurate. Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

digitalscream

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

I wonder what people think will happen to public services - like electricity, gas, water etc - when they're re-nationalised and then the money runs out...?

I also wonder what people think will be the benefit of re-nationalising those services. Do they honestly believe they'll get cheaper? Reality says that instead of prices going up to maintain company profits, prices will go up because a) the unions want more money, and b) the hole in the budget has to be plugged somehow, and these services will be the only way the government can get revenue outside of taxes.

Legionreturns said:

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

Given that the Tory economic model for the last 7 year's seems to have been "decimate everything and then lose the money down the back of the sofa and double the debt" I don't really see how they can throw that kind of accusation. 

Lest we forget they've missed every economic target they've set by a country mile. 

As for economists, some may be saying that. Some are saying it's accurate. Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

Ahhh...so you're a "We don't need no stinkin' experts" kinda guy then?

Pretty much everything that's happened since the referendum was predicted pretty accurately. It's just that the "no experts" crowd didn't believe it, and now they blame everything on the Tories as a get-out-of-jail-free for their opinions.

Sporky

digitalscream said:

Ahhh...so you're a "We don't need no stinkin' experts" kinda guy then?

When it comes to economists, isn't everyone?

Legionreturns

Ahhh...so you're a "We don't need no stinkin' experts" kinda guy then?

Pretty much everything that's happened since the referendum was predicted pretty accurately. It's just that the "no experts" crowd didn't believe it, and now they blame everything on the Tories as a get-out-of-jail-free for their opinions.

Not at all, I just observed that not all the experts agree. Over 30 economists have supported the costing in the manifesto

Garthy

The economists saying the funding vs costs are accurate are playing fast and loose with the wording, ie renationalised water, power, rail and post is 'investment' and according the Labour, off the balance sheet. It'd be like someone saying that their house hasn't cost them a penny as it's an investment, so why are they paying a mortgage every year for 25 years?

It also assumes that their fiscal plan works out exactly as predicted, give or take £4bn and hope that their tax plans don't cause a tax flight.

mellowsun

Nationalisation of everything that was privatised probably isn't the solution. Having the nation as the largest shareholder of a private company might be better.

However, when privatised companies providing an essential service fail, the state always has to pick up the pieces. East Coast mainline was fantastic when it fell back to public ownership.

And no private medical company will provide A&E services - there's no profit in it.

So a balance needs to be reached. I remember the bad days of telecoms before BT privatisation - privatisation has definitely worked well here.

Having Virgin running essential health and social care services, I'm not so sure.

Generally those in favour of privatisation are relatively immune to the effects of it.

Fretwired

Garthy said:

The economists saying the funding vs costs are accurate are playing fast and loose with the wording, ie renationalised water, power, rail and post is 'investment' and according the Labour, off the balance sheet. It'd be like someone saying that their house hasn't cost them a penny as it's an investment, so why are they paying a mortgage every year for 25 years?

It also assumes that their fiscal plan works out exactly as predicted, give or take £4bn and hope that their tax plans don't cause a tax flight.

Spot on. Many of the water companies are owned by EU-based companies so it will be interesting how Mr Corbyn squares away maintaining friendships with EU nations whilst stripping their utilities of assets - the compensation bill will eye watering. The water companies won't come cheap. Labour will have to borrow some serious sums of money.

The chances of Corbyn being PM have just vanished. The Labour Manifesto might be worth collecting as at this rate it will be the last one they ever produce .. :-)

Fretwired

Legionreturns said:

As for economists, some may be saying that. Some are saying it's accurate. Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

Most economists can do something the Labour front bench can't do - add up.

Legionreturns

Fretwired said:

Legionreturns said:

As for economists, some may be saying that. Some are saying it's accurate. Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

Most economists can do something the Labour front bench can't do - add up.

As opposed to George Osborne? 

mellowsun

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

You said elsewhere (Speaker's Corner?) that you liked a lot of the stuff in the leaked manifesto and were planning on voting Labour. Which one's the joke?

freakboy1610

I suspect that what is in Labour's manifesto is to unlikely to affect the outcome of the election. It's interesting that Labour seem to be climbing in the latest opinion polls. Two polls currently put them at 32% which is more than Ed Milliband got at the last election.

Fretwired

mellowsun said:

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

You said elsewhere (Speaker's Corner?) that you liked a lot of the stuff in the leaked manifesto and were planning on voting Labour. Which one's the joke?

I did and it wasn't a joke - for example scrapping uni fees, tax on high earners for cash for the NHS, building affordable homes  .... borrowing eye watering amounts of money to buy back the power and water companies is just dumb as is hitting companies with more tax.

Fretwired

Legionreturns said:

Fretwired said:

Legionreturns said:

As for economists, some may be saying that. Some are saying it's accurate. Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

Most economists can do something the Labour front bench can't do - add up.

As opposed to George Osborne? 

George Osborne could add up ... you'll find he was always accurate with his figures. He kept changing his mind and never stuck to a plan so chaos ensued.

mellowsun

The Plaid Cymru manifesto is out today also.

They have promised to protect Wales from the effects of them voting for Brexit. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Fretwired

mellowsun said:

The Plaid Cymru manifesto is out today also.

They have promised to protect Wales from the effects of them voting for Brexit. You couldn't make this stuff up.

What? Is the Welsh Assembly going to rebuild Offa's Dyke?

Snap

Nationalisation of ultilities - aspiration, not a plan, from one of Pabour's shadow cabinet, just now:

Labour's Sarah Champion has revealed that the plan to renationalise the water industry was only decided three weeks ago.

The shadow secretary of state for women and equalities told the BBC: “To be quite honest, we’ve had three weeks, so this is an intent. 

"So what we need to do is look at the legislation and see exactly what it is that we would pay to shareholders.”

Pushed on whether Labour were prepared for government, Ms Champion said she had only been given one extra member of staff since becoming a shadow minister - that, she said, was "the reality of being in opposition”.

Asked about renationalising the railways she said: “The railways are not actually in private ownership - they are franchised… when the next one comes up; take it back into public ownership.”

christ almighty, someone, just tell it like it is will you?

ICBM

Legionreturns said:

Tell me again when an economist last got it right? 

Keynes, probably.

ThePrettyDamned

Fretwired said:

mellowsun said:

Fretwired said:

Fully costed my arse ... some economists are saying there's a £30 billion black hole between revenue and expenditure.

I'm off to get a German passport .. :-)

You said elsewhere (Speaker's Corner?) that you liked a lot of the stuff in the leaked manifesto and were planning on voting Labour. Which one's the joke?

I did and it wasn't a joke - for example scrapping uni fees, tax on high earners for cash for the NHS, building affordable homes  .... borrowing eye watering amounts of money to buy back the power and water companies is just dumb as is hitting companies with more tax.

There is no political party that hits all the right issues in all the right ways (except for @Drew_TNBD ''s wonderful tFB party plan ) so it's all about weighing up what you believe is most important, what's achievable and what you'd rather see. 

I think some people don't understand this - the ability to criticise bad policy doesn't mean you don't want to vote for them anyway. Bad policy is bad policy... 

I must admit, I was pretty surprised when I found out how many of our crucial services are in fact off-shore owned. Whose idea was it to sell up? Or was it just a very ambitious European who began it all? 

I wish everyone could be more critical, of all parties. God knows they make it easy enough... You'd have less bullshit soundbite politics, too.