UK General Election 2017

[armaghniac]

The above chart shows that bottom third of people did pretty well, bar the very lowest. This would typically those in poorly paid jobs, which seems like exactly the people to help

[heganboy]

In case there are issues around the basics of economics, or you know, life.
Under every political regime, the richest do best...

[seafoid]

Will SF repay Jeremy Corbyn for his hospitality in Westminster and support when every other party shunned and expelled them by taking their seats in a hung parliament to put him into No.10? 

With a potential and not unrealistic 6/7 MPs, SF could either form the timing point for a introduction of a Corbyn government by voting with him or allow the return of May by their absence.  Which would be the best scenario for them?  Probably favour return of May to ensure a hard Brexit and the re-establishment of the border to create the focus for continuous political agitation.

However, given SFs inability to advance a concrete plan for a UI to take advantage of it and given the actual practical aggravation which a hard Brexit might cause to their voters, north and south, they cannot quite advocate a hard Brexit.

If the Tories lose there won't be a hard Brexit.

Labour's negotiating team of Corbyn, Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Barry Gardiner is miles better than the Tories team of Theresa the Trump appeaser, David Davis, Liam Foxhunter and  ;DBoris Johnson .

Both in an intellectual sense and in terms of existing relations with other major European parties. Labour hasn't burned its bridges with Europe like the Tories have done and Europe will be much more open to a Labour negotiating team.

The Labour team would be going to negotiate.

The Tories variously think they're going to fight a war/engage in an infantile Twitter trolling session against Europe.

They're clueless on Brexit, and that's supposed to be their "strong" issue?! 

Given that Labour are now running rings around them on their "strong issue", what does it tell you about the rest of the Tories' policies?

They're a fooking joke.

The same Emily Thornberry who said the other day they couldn't export food to Australia as it would "go off"? Aye intellectual powerhouse by the sound of it

A lot of dairy products go off pretty quickly.Can't be flown. Fresh meat too. NZ exports frozen stuff.
Most UK food exports go to the EU. And they won't be able to find replacement markets for a lot of the stuff.

I'm not disputing the correctness of this but I'd like to see a breakdown per country of where UK food exports go. I imagine most to Ireland as UK foodstuffs don't have a great reputation in nations with a greater history of fine cuisine like France or Italy.

Personally, I think Brexit will bring minimal change. Take food products as a prime example. In France, Italy and other wine producing EU countries you can get a very good bottle of wine for a couple of euro. In the UK, you're looking at at least ten pounds and even then it's invariably of the quality a Frenchman or an Italian would pour down the drain. I can't imagine wine producers are going to want to lose access to a market where they can sell substandard versions of their products for vastly inflated prices.

The supply chains for the supermarkrts feeding ordinary people in Europe take ingredients from everywhere. Aldi and Lidl are high volume low margin like other companies and might use cuts of UK mince for lasagne sold everywhere . They take the best price/quality product from everywhere and sell it across all their markets.

You don't want to look too closely at how value burges from say Findus or Tesco  are put together. UK milk might go into desserts sold in Greece and Poland . The key point is low margin. Most people in Europe haven't had a pay rise for a long time. They can't afford to pay more .
Brexit will make UK ingredients unaffordable. 

The idea that French people only drink quality wine is mistaken.

[seafoid]

May not doing too eell tonight by all accounts. First question basically called her a flat out liar lol.

I am beginning to dislike her as much as arlene. The two have some very similar characteristics and none of them positive.

May is a talking parrot, and that's an insult to talking parrots.

She told a blatant lie that Diane Abbott wanted to remove criminals from DNA databases.

She didn't even know her own government was giving foreign aid to North Korea.

Corbyn is the only competent potential Prime Minister on the campaign.

May is finished.

She is a liability.  There are no face to face debates because Corbyn would wipe the floor with her.
She reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. The Tories are reduced to attacking Corbyn on nuclear war. It is insane.
The Tories are desperately trying to hang on to a poll lead that is reduced every time she opens her mouth. If there wasn't an election next week they would dump her.


She wouldn't answer when asked whether the UK will have in place a full contingency plan — including legal provisions, international treaties and the hiring of thousands of regulators and customs officers — just in case it crashes out of the EU in 2019.

And WTO means 40% tariffs on food because nobody is stupid enough to trade on WTO terms for food. It's called World Träde Food. WTF

[Owen Brannigan]

I find it hard to believe that:

When the disabled man asked about the effect of the social care policy on him and whether it would bankrupt him, May did not follow up with a proper explanation of the policy.  The man had the total wrong idea and believed his money would be taken during his life when the policy takes all of your assets when you die and you have access to all during your life.  She totally blew this opportunity to destroy the false arguments against the policy and to emphasise that you can keep four times the amount currently left to you by the govt and you lose nothing during your life.

She missed a great opportunity to show a human side to herself in dealing with the blind woman with mental health issues.  It would have taken nothing to use her position to say to the woman that she was appalled at her treatment by the agency assessing her fitness for work and she would meet with her after the show to discuss her situation and see what could be done as any MP in a constituency clinic would do.

Corbyn has made pledges during the last week outside of the manifesto which amount to close to £8bn, e.g. paying off all current student debt, and no one has brought this to the fore and challenged him.  When challenged by audience members about collecting this money via corporate tax that companies would just leave the country and go to other lower tax countries Corbyn's answer was just, no they won't.  He claimed his higher tax rate would be the same or lower than other countries wasn't challenged given the rate of his near neighbours in RoI.

A quarter of the labour new spend in its manifesto is down to paying student fees and grants for future students in the next five years.  This is a sop to the middle classes who make up the vast majority of the students going to university, so much for the many and not the few.  How can this be a good use of billions when the economy is stagnant and statistics show that student fees and loans have not deterred any section of society from going to university and where there has been any downturn it has been in the upper salary sectors where the reluctance of taking on debt and access to immediate good employment or training for good jobs is available.

Just four thoughts this morning.

[seafoid]

She is getting  hammered in the polls

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/theresa-mays-personal-ratings-fall-labour-reduces-conservative-lead

[imtommygunn]

Polls have been highly inaccurate of late though.

I think she will still win but the longer time goes on the more votes she loses. If she wins i am not convinced she will hold on to tory party leadership.

I wonder will gove or johnson then make a push for leadership. Well more than likely gove.

[seafoid]

I find it hard to believe that:

When the disabled man asked about the effect of the social care policy on him and whether it would bankrupt him, May did not follow up with a proper explanation of the policy.  The man had the total wrong idea and believed his money would be taken during his life when the policy takes all of your assets when you die and you have access to all during your life.  She totally blew this opportunity to destroy the false arguments against the policy and to emphasise that you can keep four times the amount currently left to you by the govt and you lose nothing during your life.

She missed a great opportunity to show a human side to herself in dealing with the blind woman with mental health issues.  It would have taken nothing to use her position to say to the woman that she was appalled at her treatment by the agency assessing her fitness for work and she would meet with her after the show to discuss her situation and see what could be done as any MP in a constituency clinic would do.

Corbyn has made pledges during the last week outside of the manifesto which amount to close to £8bn, e.g. paying off all current student debt, and no one has brought this to the fore and challenged him.  When challenged by audience members about collecting this money via corporate tax that companies would just leave the country and go to other lower tax countries Corbyn's answer was just, no they won't.  He claimed his higher tax rate would be the same or lower than other countries wasn't challenged given the rate of his near neighbours in RoI.

A quarter of the labour new spend in its manifesto is down to paying student fees and grants for future students in the next five years.  This is a sop to the middle classes who make up the vast majority of the students going to university, so much for the many and not the few.  How can this be a good use of billions when the economy is stagnant and statistics show that student fees and loans have not deterred any section of society from going to university and where there has been any downturn it has been in the upper salary sectors where the reluctance of taking on debt and access to immediate good employment or training for good jobs is available.

Just four thoughts this morning.

Labour policies are more likely to generate growth. That would keep companies around. At some point the excess profit of companies will have to be redistributed to consumers. How to do that is the big question.

[Kilkevan]

Did anyone see the debate amongst the South Belfast candidates on 'The View' last night?

I thought it was completely dominated by O Muilleoir who completely owned Pengelly when she started to try to corner him re the Manchester bombing, asking him to apologise for the IRA Manchester bomb....to which he replied it was a bit rich her asking that when her father had been importing weapons to NI for loyalists....OUCH.

And how does any of that help or pass as politics ? It's like groundhog day

Ask Pengelly...

It was whataboutery at its highest level but Pengelly had it coming to her after trying to corner Máirtín Ó Muilleoir on the Manchester bombings....

She picked a fight, he put her back in her box, nothing whataboutery there. What was he supposed to do differently?

Putting their opponents in a box is a Shinner speciality

Yawn!

[Kilkevan]

On the wine, anything less than £8 and its muck, about a tenner now is the fiver of 5 or 6 years ago. On May she is as odious as Trump with out being as funny. On Brexit it is slowly dawning on the leavers that the EU holds all the cards. The North's corner will be better served by the Irish Government who understand the impact of brexit on the all island economy.

Take the time to shift through the Tesco wine online, amazing value with some 25% off on offers...

As for the South they will suffer with the no deals with Britain if it's a hard brexit

When it's sold at 25% off it's not the producers who are taking the hit.

I still don't see how that means wine producers in France and Italy aren't able to shift poor versions of their local product onto the UK market at prices the French and Italians would laugh at.

It's basic marketing sense that you save your best for the most discerning locals. Guinness is an Irish example. Pure muck outside Ireland even in places which keep it and serve it properly compared to even that served in dive bars here.

[seafoid]

On the wine, anything less than £8 and its muck, about a tenner now is the fiver of 5 or 6 years ago. On May she is as odious as Trump with out being as funny. On Brexit it is slowly dawning on the leavers that the EU holds all the cards. The North's corner will be better served by the Irish Government who understand the impact of brexit on the all island economy.

Take the time to shift through the Tesco wine online, amazing value with some 25% off on offers...

As for the South they will suffer with the no deals with Britain if it's a hard brexit

When it's sold at 25% off it's not the producers who are taking the hit.

I still don't see how that means wine producers in France and Italy aren't able to shift poor versions of their local product onto the UK market at prices the French and Italians would laugh at.

It's basic marketing sense that you save your best for the most discerning locals. Guinness is an Irish example. Pure muck outside Ireland even in places which keep it and serve it properly compared to even that served in dive bars here.

The top stuff is in a different price range . Vin de table is what most people in France drink most of the time and it is not expensive.

[armaghniac]

Polls all over the place


Comres: 12% CON lead
ICM: 11% CON lead
Kantar: 10% CON lead (Weds)
ORB: 9% CON lead
Panelbase: 8% CON lead (Thurs)
Opinium: 6% CON lead
SurveyMonkey: 6% CON lead (Weds)
IPSOS MORI: 5% CON lead (Fri)
YouGov: 4% CON lead
Survation: 1% CON lead

[seafoid]

The Telegraph is featuring news about a Labour "garden tax" that will cost people 4k.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/03/labours-garden-tax-hit-10million/

PauL Mason says it is fake news

https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/871104787374387201/photo/1

[seafoid]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-the-u-k-polls-skewed/

there are lots of hypotheses about why the polls have been off in particular elections. In the U.K. context, some common ones include:

"Shy" voters who don't state their true voting intentions;
Overly lax turnout models;
Last-minute swings that come too late in the campaign to be captured by polls;
Nonrepresentative samples or improper demographic weighting;
Incorrect assumptions about undecided voters;
Tactical voting (voters abandoning their top choice — often a minor party — for a party they think can win), and
Pollster "herding" toward incorrect targets.

[seafoid]

https://www.swapmyvote.uk/

Interesting idea for NI