Off Topic Politics Thread

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Clicked on Beefy's Panama Papers link. Off that link I clicked on an interesting TV interview segment between Ian Hislop and ID Smith, to be transmitted this Thursday. The segment reveals ID Smith's inner socialist, or at the very least his social-democrat, core. The guy properly gives a s*** and that one redeeming virtue means he shouldn't be a Conservative MP. Tears often reveal a truth: http://www.theguardian.com/politics...t-tv-interview-ian-hislop-workers-or-shirkers
 
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Beefy said:
Several of the donors, MPs and financiers who have supported David Cameron’s rise to power have had links to the UK’s network of tax havens, the Panama Papers reveal.

Three former Conservative MPs and six members of the House of Lords are among those with connections to companies on the books of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Tony Buckingham
Michael Mates
Anthony Bamford
David Rowland
The Fleming family
Howard Flight
Sir Tony Baldry
Sir Edward du Cann
Lord Astor of Hever
Juniper Equities Trading
Lord Bilimoria
Arron Banks

http://www.theguardian.com/news/201...fshore-firms-revealed-in-leaked-panama-papers
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Aaron Banks what a surprise eh :) Can't wait for the next list.
 
TheSecondStain said:
The guy properly gives a s*** and that one redeeming virtue means he shouldn't be a Conservative MP.
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And that sums up exactly what is wrong with political debate in this country and, more specifically, this thread. "All Tories are evil" is trite, demonstrably false and tedious to the point of making me want to be sick. I generally go about a fortnight before I point it out but it always happens. The quality of debate in here is:

Poster A: Aren't Tories bad?
Poster B: Yes all Tories want to privatise the NHS
Poster C: Yes and Tories hate anyone making stuff
Poster D: And Tories are all corrupt
Poster E: Yeah, Tories hate poor people and want to give all their money to bankers.
Poster A: Aren't Tories bad?
.
.
.



Repeat ad nauseam.

Vin
 
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Is there a way to ignore a thread so I don't have to do this equivalent of a sinus-clear every two weeks?
 
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Onionman said:
And that sums up exactly what is wrong with political debate in this country and, more specifically, this thread. "All Tories are evil" is trite, demonstrably false and tedious to the point of making me want to be sick. I generally go about a fortnight before I point it out but it always happens. The quality of debate in here is:

Poster A: Aren't Tories bad?
Poster B: Yes all Tories want to privatise the NHS
Poster C: Yes and Tories hate anyone making stuff
Poster D: And Tories are all corrupt
Poster E: Yeah, Tories hate poor people and want to give all their money to bankers.
Poster A: Aren't Tories bad?
.
.
.



Repeat ad nauseam.

Vin
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Why come on a thread if it annoys you so much? When I see a thread I don't care about I ignore it.
 
Being a Tory boy I see it all the time where its nasty Tories, Racist UKIP. You get used to it and you have to just ignore it after all it should be a case of pot kettle black across the board. A lot of the big politicians could find themselves caught up in this leak or future ones because apart from a select few these are rich people making decisions that affect poor people and many of them even if they are from a poor background are so far removed from it now that they do not seem to understand the reality when they are talking about the poor.

It isn't about right wing or left wing or Tory's or Socialists anymore because all the socialists are quite happy to financially benefit from capitalist policies and capitalists are quite happy to promote supposedly socialist policies.
 
Beefy said:
Why come on a thread if it annoys you so much? When I see a thread I don't care about I ignore it.
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Where did I say it annoys me? I said it was tedious. It's just a boring and trite repetition of everyone backing each other up about how the evil bastard Tories are vile. No insight, no shades of grey, no acceptance that evil bastard Tories might come in many different guises, personalities and motivations, like.. you know... humans.

I seem to recall someone on here (you know who you are) saying that if the evil bastard Tories did anything good you would applaud it. Yet I didn't see a single post on here to support the evil bastard Tories for increasing the minimum wage the other day. 7.5% rise at a time when inflation is zero. Odd. If lovely, wonderful caring Labour had done it you'd all have been having an utter love-in about it. We did get a couple of posts complaining that it hadn't been increased for Under 25s. Not a word of praise. Odd how bigoted people can be.

Vin
 
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Onionman said:
Where did I say it annoys me? I said it was tedious. It's just a boring and trite repetition of everyone backing each other up about how the evil bastard Tories are vile. No insight, no shades of grey, no acceptance that evil bastard Tories might come in many different guises, personalities and motivations, like.. you know... humans.

I seem to recall someone on here (you know who you are) saying that if the evil bastard Tories did anything good you would applaud it. Yet I didn't see a single post on here to support the evil bastard Tories for increasing the minimum wage the other day. 7.5% rise at a time when inflation is zero. Odd. If lovely, wonderful caring Labour had done it you'd all have been having an utter love in about it. We did get a couple of posts complaining that it hadn't been increased for Under 25s. Not a word of praise. Odd how bigoted people can be.

Vin
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That is because when Labour and the Lib Dems and The Greens championed the policy it was a victory for hard working low paid workers. When the Tories announced they were doing it the spin changed first to them stealing a socialist policy and then to it being the death knell for many low paid jobs and smaller companies.
 
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Onionman said:
Where did I say it annoys me? I said it was tedious. It's just a boring and trite repetition of everyone backing each other up about how the evil bastard Tories are vile. No insight, no shades of grey, no acceptance that evil bastard Tories might come in many different guises, personalities and motivations, like.. you know... humans.

I seem to recall someone on here (you know who you are) saying that if the evil bastard Tories did anything good you would applaud it. Yet I didn't see a single post on here to support the evil bastard Tories for increasing the minimum wage the other day. 7.5% rise at a time when inflation is zero. Odd. If lovely, wonderful caring Labour had done it you'd all have been having an utter love-in about it. We did get a couple of posts complaining that it hadn't been increased for Under 25s. Not a word of praise. Odd how bigoted people can be.

Vin
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Again you generalize. I don't care about Labour or the Libs etc etc either. I just say how I see it. This is the same for the other parties as well.
 
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ImpSaint said:
That is because when Labour and the Lib Dems and The Greens championed the policy it was a victory for hard working low paid workers. When the Tories announced they were doing it the spin changed first to them stealing a socialist policy and then to it being the death knell for many low paid jobs and smaller companies.
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Nope the wage rise is great in most cases. Obviously for places like where my mum work they can't afford to raise everyones wages so have to lay some people off. They tried getting more grants from the Southampton council but they said no (my mum works for a government funded play school). I don't like people losing their jobs, but then the rest will earn what they deserve. If Labour, Greens, Libs etc etc had been in charge and done the same as the Tories I would be shouting them down to (Blair is a war criminal). But as you can see I have stopped the Tory bashing recently as I see no point in it as all it does it create arguments. When I am having a go at the Tories, I am not having a go at the voters. People will vote for whoever helps them out the most. It's not the voters fault the poor get screwed over time after time (not just by the Tories).

I am far more interested in the Panama leak. But now that has been thrown into politics thread as well.
 
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Beefy said:
Nope the wage rise is great in most cases. Obviously for places like where my mum work they can't afford to raise everyones wages so have to lay some people off. They tried getting more grants from the Southampton council but they said no (my mum works for a government funded play school). I don't like people losing their jobs, but then the rest will earn what they deserve. If Labour, Greens, Libs etc etc had been in charge and done the same as the Tories I would be shouting them down to (Blair is a war criminal). But as you can see I have stopped the Tory bashing recently as I see no point in it as all it does it create arguments. When I am having a go at the Tories I am not having a go at the voters. People will vote for whoever helps them out the most. It's not the voters fault the poor get screwed over time after time (not just by the Tories).

I am far more interested in the Panama leak. But now that has been thrown into politics thread as well.
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I am interested in both. The timing of the panama leak is very interesting being in the run up to the US presidential election with Clinton and Trump both known to like their tax avoidance and Sanders saying a few years ago that the American Panama trade agreement would result in this sort of thing.

It also times in with the EU referendum and the TTIP votes.

The wage rise in most cases isn't good especially up here where many many jobs are NWM because the cost of living is lower. It is just another of those one policy fits all cases where the employers up here will now add that cost onto their product and those that now earn more will wonder where it went as their food bill rises to soak it up. For those down South already paying a decent amount of their income on housing whether mortgage or rent I think will be worse off. It is simply another policy that takes with one hand and takes away with the other.

I suspect that in many cases in the food production sector the agencies will charge the same to the employers and then the agencies will charge the workers more in transport, housing and other deductions and mean that the worker is actually paid less in take home. My Portuguese sister in law got offered a job the other day from a Polish chap who runs a big polish supermarket and he offered her £4.50 an hour like he was being generous. There is a lot of this about.
 
ImpSaint said:
I am interested in both. The timing of the panama leak is very interesting being in the run up to the US presidential election with Clinton and Trump both known to like their tax avoidance and Sanders saying a few years ago that the American Panama trade agreement would result in this sort of thing.

It also times in with the EU referendum and the TTIP votes.

The wage rise in most cases isn't good especially up here where many many jobs are NWM because the cost of living is lower. It is just another of those one policy fits all cases where the employers up here will now add that cost onto their product and those that now earn more will wonder where it went as their food bill rises to soak it up. For those down South already paying a decent amount of their income on housing whether mortgage or rent I think will be worse off. It is simply another policy that takes with one hand and takes away with the other.

I suspect that in many cases in the food production sector the agencies will charge the same to the employers and then the agencies will charge the workers more in transport, housing and other deductions and mean that the worker is actually paid less in take home. My Portuguese sister in law got offered a job the other day from a Polish chap who runs a big polish supermarket and he offered her £4.50 an hour like he was being generous. There is a lot of this about.
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Didn't think of that. I was being kind to companies thinking they would take the hits themselves. Hopefully some do.
 
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Beefy said:
Didn't think of that. I was being kind to companies thinking they would take the hits themselves. Hopefully some do.
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In the groceries sector prices will have to go up because a lot of the suppliers either to the production facilities or to the supermarkets are already selling at close to cost.

That includes places that produce bog roll to food producers, dairy farms and such like. While we all talk about imports the UK produces 60% of its food and it just got a lot more expensive to pick an apple, then process it plus if the bottom end workers get a payrise to a new NWM then all the way up the chain there are pay rises. The NWM is a baseline which everything above is gauged against so even the drivers that deliver the product and the shelf stackers and till operatives will get a rise even if they were above the NWM. That 60% could get smaller. Maybe we need another fake salmonella crisis to protect the home grown product.
 
There should definitely be some regional variation in the minimum wage. From what ImpSaint is saying £7.20 will cause problems in some areas of the country and/or some industries because it may be too high a level. Equally, it isn't anywhere near enough to live on in London. I just about got by on that sort of pay 10 years ago when three of us were renting a two bedroom **** hole in either Hackney or Tower Hamlets. I can't imagine trying to live on £7.20 per hour in London today.

Part of me wonders whether there should be other variations too (perhaps it could vary by industry, by whether or not you're the primary wage earner in your household or whether the job is your main job). I imagine administering that would be a nightmare though.
 
Puck said:
There should definitely be some regional variation in the minimum wage. From what ImpSaint is saying £7.20 will cause problems in some areas of the country and/or some industries because it may be too high a level. Equally, it isn't anywhere near enough to live on in London. I just about got by on that sort of pay 10 years ago when three of us were renting a two bedroom **** hole in either Hackney or Tower Hamlets. I can't imagine trying to live on £7.20 per hour in London today.

Part of me wonders whether there should be other variations too (perhaps it could vary by industry, by whether or not you're the primary wage earner in your household or whether the job is your main job). I imagine administering that would be a nightmare though.
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I've said it for a long time that the benefits cap in the North is a pretty good life whereas in London even though it is £3k higher I can see it being a bit of a struggle.

Housing benefit should be treated separately from benefits as it is such a big variable whereas in general grocery and energy prices are similar across the country.

The problem though is this one nation thing. A 2 bed terrace rent here is £400/month (£250 if it is a council house like mine.) Down South it will be double I guess. In London it will be way over a thousand a month. So if £7.20 is the measure in London then the same in Lincoln is just silly. Housing is the biggest variable in the country.

The problem however is the same as when the Portuguese first came to the UK because of the higher earning. They quickly realised that they weren't that much better off because the UK is expensive and a lot went back home. If you had NMW in London of £7.20, in Manchester of £7.00 and so on then idiot British would do the same focusing on that baseline earnings figure and head for the higher NMW areas. Of course that would mean that those areas would get even more crowded without there being extra jobs to accommodate the extra bodies the higher NMW would attract.

It is a pity it doesn't work the other way around and more people move to the cheaper areas after all a cleaner gets the same wage in Lincoln as they do in London with much less costs in terms of rent etc.
 
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Saw this, this morning.

HUNDREDS of thousands of construction and agency workers will lose an average £1,000 a year under a stealth tax being brought in today.

Workers employed by umbrella companies, usually classed as self-employed and lacking holiday, sick pay and pension rights, can no longer claim tax relief on travel, food and accommodation.
 
St Badger said:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/30/osbornes-national-living-wage-minimum-wage

This claims that the minimum "living" wage should be £8.25 per hour, £9.40 in London.
Some companies have signed up to this hourly rate, which is great, but I'm not sure how much impact it would have on less profitable concerns, were all wages increased by a further £1.05 per hour.
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You also have to consider that other peoples pay may need to be increased to maintain a pay gap otherwise people won't be too happy having more responsibility but being paid nearly the same as someone without any or less.
 
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