the gift that keeps on giving Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn gives the hand sign of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation which wants to end democracy and impose a global Islamic caliphate with sharia law. please log in to view this image or is that as high as he can count for expense purposes Jeremy Corbyn faces inquiry after failing to declare Tunisia visit expenses Oliver Wright, Policy Editor | Anshel Pfeffer, Jerusalem August 15 2018, 12:01am, The Times please log in to view this image Jeremy Corbyn appeared to become exasperated as he was questioned about the row yesterdayDARREN STAPLES/REUTERS Jeremy Corbyn is facing a parliamentary inquiry into claims that he failed to declare who paid for his wreath-laying trip to Tunisia. Labour admitted that Mr Corbyn had been funded by the Tunisian government to travel there in 2014, before he became party leader, along with two nights’ accommodation in a hotel. It was during the trip to attend a conference on Middle Eastern affairs that he visited the Palestinian martyrs’ cemetery in Tunis and laid a wreath near the graves of members of the terrorist group that carried out the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. The trip was not registered in the House of Commons register of members’ interests. Banned extremist & anti-Semite, Abou Jahjah, spent a decade stirring up hate in the UK! During the Iraq war he said he “considers every dead Dutch, British & US soldier a victory” & referred to gay people as “Aids spreading fa**ots!” Jeremy Corbyn invited him to the Commons! please log in to view this image
I seriously don't understand this infatuation with Jeremy Corbyn and the intent on his destruction. I'm not really arsed either way about him to be fair but journalism surely has to be based on facts. This country is going to **** with its pathetic politics and blatant lazy, lies of journalism. If it isn't brexit ****e, it's Tory ****e, if it isn't Tory ****e it's Labour ****e and if it isn't Labour ****e then let's pin some stuff on some Russians. Really starting to dislike where our society is heading.
Well said Bob This stuff gets whipped up It seems we have to accept it Trump McDonald’s Ryanair Corbyn Terror The irony is the main channels for this ****e is Facebook and Twitter We are all at it even on here It’s a good observation Bob I mentioned sheep culture before Plus the madness makes us all feel we are right yet we are puppets I would add another observation The weather forecast on TV in the U.K. is now hosted by a different face each night all pretending they own the weather in a sickening expert style Love to see a few come on and say sorry we got it wrong completely but they never will same as the news journalists and the slice of drama they add to every story I try and turn it off nowadays however it’s weird because a story breaks online in real time yet we feel compelled to watch the BBC to ensure it’s factual ... they are the bastards making the stories up in the first place imo I salute Corbyn for sticking to his guns on this issue. He has done nothing wrong imo Why is the world so obsessed and influenced by anti Jewish feelings as if we should not be allowed to express our beliefs. When the world is designed to hate Palestine Corbyn is under fire by everyone He has done nothing wrong But he is a little bit **** but not half as bad as some of the others
What worries me more is that if they're telling private sector workers to take a pay cut what's going to happen to the public sector?
For 40+ years, the Conservatives have held an idealogical point of view which means they want to reduce the size of the state and the amount of money the state spends. They believe the marketplace is more efficient at providing public services than a publicly-owned resource. Whenever possible, they've gone ahead and carried out actions in line with that belief. The fact that many Conservative party funding supporters were in business themselves and wanted to use their own businesses to provide public services (and make a profit) rather than use a publicly-owned organisation may have had something to do with the support it carried within their party. New Labour went along with aspects of this as part of their positioning to win the support of Conservative voters. It worked. Some policies, like "right to buy" were very popular with people who may not have considered themselves Conservatives until they were able to buy their council house at a significant market discount. Who could blame them? I don't. Moreover, by preventing the councils from spending that income on building new houses to replace them, the state was being taken out of the housing provision business - in line with the ideology. You can see why that approach would appeal. It's only now, a few decades down the line, that we see the short term gain (politically and financially) has been replaced by a longer-term problem. And the marketplace isn't solving it. There is not enough affordable housing available. So now we have a scenario where the government spends our money managing and monitoring the quality and effectiveness of public services - the services where the customer has no real choice about supplier, the ones where the suppliers are paid by the government to run a service on behalf of the country. Like the railways. The only time this is a free market with competition is when the suppliers are bidding against each other to win the franchise. The government generally selects the lowest bidder. Then, when the supplier actually starts to run the service, they don't have enough money to do it properly. They cut services, or lay off staff, or forget to clean the trains. This is the point in time when the government steps in. They are responsible to the public for the service that they subcontracted to the private sector. They are somewhat isolated from the problem, because they don't run the company that is failing to deliver. They have actually stepped away from their responsibility to us, the public, and hide behind the private company that they selected. A very common trait everywhere. How many of us have had to fight an unfair parking ticket in a shopping car park and been told it's enforced by a separate company and not the fault of the supermarket? It's time to correct mistakes and put these services back where they belong. It's funny, because some of you will call me a socialist for writing this - and for some of you, that is an insult and something you would never want to be. I don't support any political party. I support policies. Using the marketplace to provide public services does not save money from the public purse in the long run. It only serves the people who own the companies delivering those services. Measuring a service by how much it costs is not the only metric we should use. What is the price of a dirty train, or a cancelled one to the commuter who already pays through the nose for a service they have no choice over using unless they move house or change job? Apologies for the long read. Looking forward to the emoticons from the usual people with lots of zzzz's on them. Do your worst!
Spot on, and it's why I think Corbyn has done the country a great service in taking the Labour party back towards proper socialist polices. The reason Labour did unexpectedly well at the last election was that its manifesto for renationalisation of the railways and utilities is widely popular. Blair and Brown's failure to reverse Thatcher's privatisation binge was a shameful dereliction for a government calling itself Labour.
A level results day. I have skin in the game this year. Daughter didn’t do as well as she needed to get into her top choices, but within 30 minutes had offers from 3 other Russell Group universities to do exactly the course she wants. All of the courses she has been offered had the same entry requirements as the ones she didn’t get. So we have had a rollercoaster morning running from disappointment, through anxiety to, frankly, delight. But I’m not sure this is a sensible system for anyone. Certainly the timing is insane, with barely a month between finding out where you can go to and actually going there. Friends from other countries are gobsmacked by it. Nice work. The ideology is one thing, the application another. There are ‘natural monopolies’ which you would only privatise out of ideological fervour, and as we have learned it can be a very damaging thing to do. Similarly, nationalising stuff like car making just because it is doing badly (a la Tony Benn) or for ideological reasons rarely work if the nationalised operation has to compete in a marketplace. As in most things I am comfortable in a grey area, there must be a non ideological line to take (provided we accept that we are in a regulated, market economy). My natural instinct is against large scale state run enterprises, but that’s because I don’t think the state runs stuff very well. But I know the ‘efficiency’ of the private sector, particularly the big private sector concerns likely to run big bits of national infrastructure, is a myth. In my experience there is a much bigger difference between small private sector companies and big ones than there is between big private companies and public sector concerns in the way they operate. The key difference is between private and public objectives, shareholder value v a much more complex set of service objectives, many more stakeholders (sorry for jargon).
Interesting that when addressing the issue of the lack of housing, you blame the sale of council houses, and make no mention whatsoever of the massive increase in net immigration particularly since New Labour took office in 1997. But then, that doesn't fit in with your political agenda, BD! Have a look at the first graph on this: https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics
My post wasn't about housing, Goldie, so try not to deflect the discussion. "Right to buy" as an ideology is merely an example of why not all public sector issues can be made better by turning them into private sector ones. What's your view on the railways? That's what I was writing about. How would reducing immigration help private companies run a better railway as a public service?
Fantastic post the best for ages This is the essence why I have continuously done what I have done Thatcher and then Blair politically sold out our country and made it one big shop It generated individual and corporate greed and that destroyed the U.K. imo I hold my hands up however as that system benefitted me to get out and follow my own agenda. What it has left is a very nasty culture that I cannot see ever changing Public services playing catch up with business models borrowed and influenced by the private sector which I believe is still ten years ahead. Public services will always be in the shadow of Private Enterprise. The private sector feeds off the public sector because of one thing money. Profits to be made Greedy shareholders demanding more money This is the norm Example Kingston Council had a commercial property it owns which is one of many they have purchased so they can met budgets and supply public services It’s a commercial property worth £300m and has been vacant for a while. A problem arose recently when grass root housing officers responsible for the homeless discovered rough sleepers in an area of the property. Actions were taken very swiftly indeed not because of the homeless but because the insurance for the asset was compromised The housing officers tried contacting the building owners and naively went through the insurance company which sparked the whole thing . They didn’t even know the building was owned by their employer Royal Kingston all paid by tax payers money. Mrs DT didn’t even know of that building It was hidden under another companyname and managed by a third party The rough sleepers were chucked out of course because of money very quickly and magically given accommodation where there is none apparently! Since the crisis it has been exposed they own a lot more property all around London and the other councils do the same. They are all at it ... some would argue they have to be just to survive Meanwhile they are moving people out of London as quick as they can ask yourself why? ... no your can’t have a council house in London but you can in Portsmouth So public services are having to make and retain property portfolios to get revenue in and hold assets worth more than currency So they can continue the social engineering It will take more than a shift in politics in the U.K. to change this culture. I believe the NHS has had similar issues with its silent portfolio... know that Moorfields in Old Street is sold ... moving to Kings Cross and will make a massive profit Meanwhile in other parts of the country where they don’t know this stuff is happening or don’t believe it have finally seen and felt the effects ... no wonder they voted for Brexit They were led to believe the EU is to blame Hence the protest vote
I know how housing works from first hand This is fluff I have posted how housing in London works You can argue the toss but you are wrong and way off the mark and truth
It may not have been the main purpose of your post, BD, but if you devote an entire paragraph to housing, and blame the fact that there is not enough housing on the Tories reliance on market forces, you surely have to add the main exacerbating factor, namely mass immigration. I'm not expert on railways, but I do remember that public owned rail services were crap. The trains were slow and dirty, work was sloppy and the unions were always calling the workforce out. But I agree the system of privatisation we have now is not working well either. My feeling is that there should be more monitoring of the current system and the supervising body needs to have real teeth to fine companies that don't meet standards. It would take big government money to take the railways back into public ownership and we could well find that, without incentives, the rail service gets worse still.
So are you saying that the huge increases in immigration over the last 20 years has had no effect on the lack of housing in the UK, DT?
Obviously more people is going to increase demand for housing but it’s not a demand issue given we obviously need immigration as a country to grow. We have exceptionally low- too low- unemployment so need to increase the labour supply not cut it. There are loads of people to blame for not adequately investing in the infrastructure and supply of housing. The vast majority are White British.
To optimise economic growth, I don’t think it can go lower than 4%, once you take into account the different types of unemployment (frictional etc.). Appreciate this is a bit theoretical but I was taught that 5% is a healthy level.
whilst immigration doesn't help the lack of housing there are 2 things at play: 1. you're assuming that no new houses are being built which wouldn't house the increase in migrants (i don't know the stats on this). 2. the real issue being discussed is that public and subsidised housing which is being reduced by the right to buy policy and the lack of replacement stock help to buy was a policy that had good intentions but as you can see is not sustainable and should be abandoned
There are 1.36 million people unemployed. It must be government's duty to do what it can to help them find work by education, incentives, retraining etc. Of course, there are some skills we need from overseas workers and that must be taken into account in any immigration policy. But the fact that the big corporates are concerned at their profit margins because they won't be able to get unlimited cheap labour after Brexit, tells me they have been undercutting the market which was bad news for the British workman who has a mortgage and a family to feed.
