Off Topic General Election Special

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Sounds totally grim for such a wealthy country, however you label it. I'd call it poverty, or being unacceptably poor:

Loads of sources could have been used, but here's one:

"A couple with two children living in poverty has less than £58 per day – that’s £15 each - after housing costs to pay for food, bills, childcare, transport, household items, clothes and other expenses like school trips or children’s activities.

The same family on average income in the UK has about £96 per day – that’s £24 each - to cover these things."

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/ending-child-poverty/what-is-child-poverty

58 quid a day works out to over 1700 a month after housing costs. That is not poverty.
 
I only know one person who lives off benefits. She’s a single mum to one child, she can afford a car, she goes out for meals, she goes on holidays numerous times a year, usually to places like skeg but once a year abroad to places like the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Greek islands etc... The father is the typical dole dosser that people scoff at, chronically unemployed, drug and boozing, been in prison, proper waste of space, doesn’t see his child. Can’t imagine she gets anything from him.

I know this is a very very tiny sample size but if she can manage all that off benefits it can’t be that bad?
 
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There are plenty scratching a living, foraging for waste plastic for example. It is their only income. The moves to clean up that waste stream, as much as it is needed, will see these people starve.

For the sake of clarity, I'm not advocating not clearing the waste, I'm highlighting the precarious position many in the world are in, and how our well meaning actions need to have their plight in mind.

Like free broadband. Apparently there are 400,000 people working for small broadband companies that would be unable to compete with free. Has the tax income loss and subsequent welfare payments from those been costed?
 
I only know one person who lives off benefits. She’s a single mum to one child, she can afford a car, she goes out for meals, she goes on holidays numerous times a year, usually to places like skeg but once a year abroad to places like the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Greek islands etc... The father is the typical dole dosser that people scoff at, chronically unemployed, drug and boozing, been in prison, proper waste of space, doesn’t see his child. Can’t imagine she gets anything from him.

I know this is a very very tiny sample size but if she can manage all that off benefits it can’t be that bad?

The issue in the UK with this scenario, is that the child will most likely go to a poorly funded, bad school and have little good influence from the parent, then grow up as an adult in a much worse situation if benefits continue to be cut. It works to cut benefits if children, who aren't to blame, are given a help up the ladder by the state. The state has been cutting the rungs off this ladder for many years now.
 
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After housing costs including bills, food, childcare and travel expenses, household items, children’s activities and so on...


So if you can’t afford to spend a week of every month all inclusive in Tenerife you are living in poverty.
 
Like free broadband. Apparently there are 400,000 people working for small broadband companies that would be unable to compete with free. Has the tax income loss and subsequent welfare payments from those been costed?

Quite possibly the daftest of the ideas, it would be massively costly and is completely unnecessary.

I watched John McDonnell announce this proposal, which he claimed was based on what they've done in South Korea, only broadband in South Korean isn't state owned and isn't free.
 
The issue in the UK with this scenario, is that the child will most likely go to a poorly funded, bad school and have little good influence from the parent, then grow up as an adult in a much worse situation if benefits continue to be cut. It works to cut benefits if children, who aren't to blame, are given a help up the ladder by the state. The state has been cutting the rungs off this ladder for many years now.

Different school to my little bastard but I don’t think it’s bad. I don’t think the child will necessarily turn out that way, I think that is more down to parenting and the motivation and example offered by parents. Although the mother is a career benefit claimant, she does seem to do well by the child always keeping busy and doing things.

The ones you speak of I think are more likely to be raised by the sofa dwelling, Facebook addicted, fat lazy idle ****s. Probably more likely to be found at the lower end of the money tree but more dictated by personality rather than finances. I think with these types of people their financial situation is a side effect of their personality.
 
Quite possibly the daftest of the ideas, it would be massively costly and is completely unnecessary.

I watched John McDonnell announce this proposal, which he claimed was based on what they've done in South Korea, only broadband in South Korean isn't state owned and isn't free.

BT also claim that labour have underestimated the cost they claimed in their manifesto of rolling out FTTP nationwide by at least 500%.

I suppose they would say that, but they are sure to have a real idea of the true cost.
 
It isn't fully costed. No party in the world can tell you the cost of nationalising everything in 'the first 100 days' and claim to be able to do is an outright lie.
Who said they were going to complete nationalisations in the first 100 days.

I guess there is a point here - you can’t *know* the cost of policies in advance in full detail, you can only estimate them. That applies to all manifestos though, of all parties. The Tories don’t *know* the costs and benefits of brexit, it’s an estimate.

What an odd criticism!
 
Who said they were going to complete nationalisations in the first 100 days.

I guess there is a point here - you can’t *know* the cost of policies in advance in full detail, you can only estimate them. That applies to all manifestos though, of all parties. The Tories don’t *know* the costs and benefits of brexit, it’s an estimate.

What an odd criticism!

The tories, as far as I’m aware, haven’t been going round shouting from the rooftops that all their policies are fully costed and telling every man and his dog they can 100% afford to do everything they propose?
 
There is a risk of a remain coalition taking power. If this happened what is the longer term future of remaining in the EU forever?
Uncontrolled free movement, ever closer federation, increased contributions, further expansion to the east and Turkey, pressure to join the Euro?

Freedom of Movement is totally controlled, please don't think for a second people just walk in. We work very closely with Interpol and other security agencies, if somebody is entering the country that shouldn't, it's a government **** up, not an EU one. Leaving the EU would increase migration from outside the EU anyway. Not that we don't want to stop people coming here.

No problem with being more united, none of the other countries seem to be whinging and making up bullshit about it, it's just us.

Increased contributions are fine, if the 5th wealthiest economy can't afford to spend 0.2% of it's GDP or whatever miniscule amount it is in national terms, then we're buggered.

Turkey has already said it isn't interested in joining the EU, it doesn't want to, nobody else wants them to and even if they did, as an EU nation, we'd be better placed to veto them as a prospective member. But it's bollocks, they're not interested.

Funny how Leave voters point to "PROJECT FEAR" when they're warned of economic instability, but the things you just listed (which, I'm sorry to say, are bollocks) somehow constitute sensible points, and not scaremongering to hammer home your point.
 
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I have spent a lot of time living in "Third World" countries.
When people in this country talk about being poor, they cite things about living on benefits, not being able to pay your electricity bill and getting the power cut off. I say in most countries I have lived poor people don't have electricity in the first place and there are no state benefits.

There's no wonder they want to come here* .(*traversing many countries in between of course)
 
Who said they were going to complete nationalisations in the first 100 days.

I guess there is a point here - you can’t *know* the cost of policies in advance in full detail, you can only estimate them. That applies to all manifestos though, of all parties. The Tories don’t *know* the costs and benefits of brexit, it’s an estimate.

What an odd criticism!

I assume he's referring to McDonnell's '100 days speech', which was ****, but actually just said they'd start it, not finish it - 'In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership'.

And though you can only estimate the cost of Brexit, the cost of buying a company is actually something you can do quite accurately.
 
The tories, as far as I’m aware, haven’t been going round shouting from the rooftops that all their policies are fully costed and telling every man and his dog they can 100% afford to do everything they propose?

They've costed it, so they know where they'd like the money to come from, but actually getting it into the system is a different matter entirely.

I'd rather they try than continue with what we've got, though.
 
I assume he's referring to McDonnell's '100 days speech', which was ****, but actually just said they'd start it, not finish it - 'In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership'.

And though you can only estimate the cost of Brexit, the cost of buying a company is actually something you can do quite accurately.
Buying a company and nationalising a company isn’t the same thing though.
 
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