Off Topic Politics Thread

[StJabbo1]

If anyone likes conspiracies…

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So far we have no proof from Biden himself that he has actually dropped out. Just a tweet and a picture of a letter with a digital signature that is nothing like his actual signature.

Does he even know he’s dropped out?
Did he post the tweet or was it someone else?

Hope you had a box of tissues handy when you first read that.

 

[saintrichie123]

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[Gregm1988]

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The party of financial responsibility or something like that.

But it’s Labour we can’t trust with spending money

 

[saintrichie123]

The party of financial responsibility or something like that.

But it’s Labour we can’t trust with spending money

I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg with regarding how much the tories spent in general and never disclosed the real figures.

 

[StJabbo1]

I did. And a great photo of your mum

What about this mods?

 

[tomw24]

Consider this thread locked until I have a conversation with Chilco.

 

[tomw24]

Thread re-opened. Os and Jabbo have earned themselves 2 week bans from this thread for ignoring previous warnings about offensive and inappropriate language. Anyone else who uses this thread as an excuse to use offensive language aimed at another member will join them.

 

[......loading......]

Without those two this place will be in danger of falling into civilised ways!

 

[Libby]

Without those two this place will be in danger of falling into civilised ways!

**** off

 

[......loading......]

**** off

This is still more polite than PMQs!

 

[Puck]

The party of financial responsibility or something like that.

But it’s Labour we can’t trust with spending money

I mean, nobody believes the Conservatives are the party of financial responsibility any more. I've been saying for some time that the last Conservative government was a high tax, high spend government.

 

[Gregm1988]

I mean, nobody believes the Conservatives are the party of financial responsibility any more. I've been saying for some time that the last Conservative government was a high tax, high spend government.

And yet there will still be people who will say and believe that “it will be worse under Labour”. Definitely no questions asked. And not just alt right lunatics. My dad is someone who is extremely sensible but grew up in a time when things were bad and got worse under Labour. And now even though the Blair Labour government should have dispelled that idea and the **** show that was the last 14 years should have buried it - he still says it

Indeed the Tories tried campaigning on Labour raising taxes when they raised taxes to the highest level ever. And although they didn’t win they go some traction

 

[thereisonlyoneno7]

And yet there will still be people who will say and believe that “it will be worse under Labour”. Definitely no questions asked. And not just alt right lunatics. My dad is someone who is extremely sensible but grew up in a time when things were bad and got worse under Labour. And now even though the Blair Labour government should have dispelled that idea and the **** show that was the last 14 years should have buried it - he still says it

Indeed the Tories tried campaigning on Labour raising taxes when they raised taxes to the highest level ever. And although they didn’t win they go some traction

The thing is that it is ingrained into some. I actually am fighting that same thought by telling myself it is my unconscious bias. I am in the wait and see and I’ll give it a go category at the moment.

 

[Gregm1988]

The thing is that it is ingrained into some. I actually am fighting that same thought by telling myself it is my unconscious bias. I am in the wait and see and I’ll give it a go category at the moment.

I can understand it in some. My dad was 18 in 1974 when it was chaos and labour came in and it got worse. What I don’t get it people who have lived almost their entire adult lives under Tory austerity and all our public services degrading who say the same thing

 

[It'sOnlyAGame]

I don't know if anyone else noticed it but at about 8.40 tonight there was an unusually strong sense of bonhomie that spread itself across this Saints board. No longer was Schad a pompous know-all or Jabbo a brown nosing chump. But it wasn't just those two, at precisely 8.42pm everyone on here once again became my fellow Saints fans, my not606 friends and I respected their opinions. I even nodded in agreement to one of loadings' posts. For almost 40 minutes this place was a Shangri-La of love and happiness.

But at 9.21pm the Politics thread was re-opened and Schad and Jabbo returned to their previous incarnations and the rest of you are commies.

 

[Puck]

And yet there will still be people who will say and believe that “it will be worse under Labour”. Definitely no questions asked. And not just alt right lunatics. My dad is someone who is extremely sensible but grew up in a time when things were bad and got worse under Labour. And now even though the Blair Labour government should have dispelled that idea and the **** show that was the last 14 years should have buried it - he still says it

Indeed the Tories tried campaigning on Labour raising taxes when they raised taxes to the highest level ever. And although they didn’t win they go some traction

Really? The Blair and Brown governments lived on credit (in 1997 the national debt was 36.6% of GDP, in 2010 it was 70.9% of GDP) and literally left a note in the Treasury saying there was no money left. You can talk about "Tory austerity" all you want but there wouldn't have been much difference under Labour. I know several people who worked on Labour's 2010 campaign and they admitted to me privately that Labour's economic plans then were very similar to what the coalition did.

This new Labour government almost certainly will raise taxes. If they want to spend more (and it appears they do) they will either have to raise taxes or borrow more, particularly as the OBR predicts they'll lose billions in tax revenue from petrol as people switch to electric cars. My guess is they'll go after savings at some point - Starmer said during the campaign he didn't want to tax working people and, when pressed, defined working people as those without savings - and all indications are that council tax will be reformed to hit property owners. I recently listened to an interview with John McTernan, who used to be a very senior adviser to Tony Blair and in that interview he said "A lot of wealth in the U.K. is in the form of housing wealth. It seems right that you should actually extract some revenue from that…." He then described increases in house prices as a "windfall" and said "windfalls should get a windfall tax".

 

[Gregm1988]

Really? The Blair and Brown governments lived on credit (in 1997 the national debt was 36.6% of GDP, in 2010 it was 70.9% of GDP) and literally left a note in the Treasury saying there was no money left. You can talk about "Tory austerity" all you want but there wouldn't have been much difference under Labour. I know several people who worked on Labour's 2010 campaign and they admitted to me privately that Labour's economic plans then were very similar to what the coalition did.

This new Labour government almost certainly will raise taxes. If they want to spend more (and it appears they do) they will either have to raise taxes or borrow more, particularly as the OBR predicts they'll lose billions in tax revenue from petrol as people switch to electric cars. My guess is they'll go after savings at some point - Starmer said during the campaign he didn't want to tax working people and, when pressed, defined working people as those without savings - and all indications are that council tax will be reformed to hit property owners. I recently listened to an interview with John McTernan, who used to be a very senior adviser to Tony Blair and in that interview he said "A lot of wealth in the U.K. is in the form of housing wealth. It seems right that you should actually extract some revenue from that…." He then described increases in house prices as a "windfall" and said "windfalls should get a windfall tax".

Unfortunately I can’t really take anyone seriously who references the “note”. I encourage to look at the history of such notes. It is basically a thing that is always done and I’m pretty sure was first done by an outgoing Tory. It’s basically a bit of an inside joke that is never intended to be made public. Osbourne broke that and made sure everyone knew about it and now people still won’t shut up about it 14 years later. Even though this time the national debt is even higher, there seems to be even less money and it’s not like we have anything to show for it - like the top ranked health service in the world by patient satisfaction (which was the case in 2010)

So yeah - I’m not having that I’m afraid

As to tax rises - any government would have done them. And the Tories already did over 14 years and would have done more. You can’t campaign on “the others will raise taxes” if you have created the largest tax burden ever but with nothing to show for all that money taken. That’s the point I was trying to make on tax. What you will find is that most people don’t actually want tax cuts - they want working public services. Whether this can be done - that’s the challenge. But the last lot were making absolutely no effort to improve public services. The money was just being siphoned off in one way or another. The hope it that this stops

 

[- Doing The Lambert Walk]

Good to see Republican senator for Ohio, George Lang, making sure to continue 'bringing down the temperature' that has of course been entirely stoked up by the Democrats and all those nasty centrists and left-leaning individuals...

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[Gregm1988]

Good to see Republican senator for Ohio, George Lang, making sure to continue 'bringing down the temperature' that has of course been entirely stoked up by the Democrats and all those nasty centrists and left-leaning individuals...

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Some of the state level politicians are absolutely whackadoodles. I expect there are probably some loons at state level in super blue states for democrats. Although none calling for civil war

It’s only ever republicans calling for civil war. And that is because they assume the army will be on their side. But picture it in the way it plays out in this guys mind - republicans lose nationally and so it apparently takes a civil war to fix. But in this scenario the democrats are in charge of the government and the military

It’s a crazy world where large numbers of Americans have a fantasy about fighting their own fellow countrymen rather than fantasising about fighting their old enemy who is on manoeuvres again in Europe. Is it because in that one it would be a risk of a nuclear conflict which a civil war won’t be? Even the most rabid and crazy pro civil war right wingers would want to nuke US cities

 

[......loading......]

Good to see Republican senator for Ohio, George Lang, making sure to continue 'bringing down the temperature' that has of course been entirely stoked up by the Democrats and all those nasty centrists and left-leaning individuals...

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Just saying this should be treason. This guy is a fruit loop.