Don't vote Tory

[slash's hat]

My dad said to me the other day that he was going to do something he thought never in his life he would do (he's 73), vote conservative, purely because of corbyn.

[Justiceforcedave]

22 minutes ago, slash's hat said:

My dad said to me the other day that he was going to do something he thought never in his life he would do (he's 73), vote conservative, purely because of corbyn.

I'm sure lots of people will be doing this.....thing is they're not just voting for the Conservatives.....they're voting for all of the Conservative policies. They're not just not voting for Corbyn.....they're not voting for all of the Labour policies. 

It's like ordering dinner from the Gourmet Burger Van rather than Goan Fish Curries because.....yunno, the front says "gourmet" and although the guy running the van is a total arse hole, the dude cooking the Goan Fish Curries seemed a bit weird and wasn't doing a good job of managing his staff. Who wants a delicious healthy curry if it's cooked by an idiot when you can have strong and stable food poisoning?

Edited May 20, 2017 by Justiceforcedave

[Mr.Tease]

36 minutes ago, slash's hat said:

My dad said to me the other day that he was going to do something he thought never in his life he would do (he's 73), vote conservative, purely because of corbyn.

Well, if he ever needs social care he'll unfortunately have to pay for it all out of the value of his house, hope its worth it! Seems a bit like cutting his nose off to spite his face

Edited May 20, 2017 by Mr.Tease

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, Mr.Tease said:

Well, if he ever needs social care he'll unfortunately have to pay for it all out of the value of his house, hope its worth it! Seems a bit like cutting his nose off to spite his face

Just out of interest, who do you think is better to pay for it than someone with assets who has no need of those assets?

[zahidf]

There is still hope!

 

 

[Mr.Tease]

6 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Just out of interest, who do you think is better to pay for it than someone with assets who has no need of those assets?

I'm fine taxing inheritance to the max, but it used to get slammed when left wingers supported it. I just wonder why so many elderly people and tories who would be up in arms if Corbyn had proposed this are now suddenly fine with it. I just find their sudden selflessness bizarre! 

 

[slash's hat]

1 hour ago, Scruffylovemonster said:

Try and convince him to at least go to one of the other options. (Not that it's gonna matter really). 

Oh I did, dont worry about that - but in his words anything else is a wasted vote. I did say at least voting elsewhere may mean having to form a coalition and therefore some moderation on their policies hopefully. There might be a glimmer of hope when I mentioned the fox hunting potentially being lifted.

With regard needing care I completely agree, but we lived in social housing then dad bought it in the sell off at a ridiculously cheap price, so I suppose you could view it as just going back into the system. I dunno, but I will keep discussing with him.

Was just highlighting really that corbyn not only doesn't appeal to a lot of voters, but is also turning them elsewhere.

[DeanoL]

The UK rail system isn't actually that bad though. Nor is it that expensive outside of small peak time windows. You just need to know how and when to book tickets to get travel at reasonable rates and its an utter clusterfuck because different bits are owned by different people and finding the reasonably priced tickets is a nightmare. Nationalisation would at least fix that which would be a huge step forwards.

[Ommadawn]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

The UK rail system isn't actually that bad though. Nor is it that expensive outside of small peak time windows. You just need to know how and when to book tickets to get travel at reasonable rates and its an utter clusterfuck because different bits are owned by different people and finding the reasonably priced tickets is a nightmare. Nationalisation would at least fix that which would be a huge step forwards.

That would depend on how they set the prices. If they set them nationally at the higher level, tens of thousands of people will pay more - if they set them at the lower or average level, I guess the network would run at a loss and would need extra cash from the tax payer - most of whom don't use the rail network.

[Justiceforcedave]

2 hours ago, DeanoL said:

The UK rail system isn't actually that bad though. Nor is it that expensive outside of small peak time windows. You just need to know how and when to book tickets to get travel at reasonable rates and its an utter clusterfuck because different bits are owned by different people and finding the reasonably priced tickets is a nightmare. Nationalisation would at least fix that which would be a huge step forwards.

Try living in the South my friend! Trains are overcrowded, regularly late or cancelled for no reason, Southern rail is facing strike action or some other kind of screw up on pretty much a monthly basis. It's the worst service ever and costs people money, jobs and time!

 

[Wanderlei]

Theresa made the mistake of sending me a letter through the post with her image on it today. Had a great time defacing it! Small things...

[clarkete]

6 hours ago, DeanoL said:

The UK rail system isn't actually that bad though. Nor is it that expensive outside of small peak time windows. You just need to know how and when to book tickets to get travel at reasonable rates and its an utter clusterfuck because different bits are owned by different people and finding the reasonably priced tickets is a nightmare. Nationalisation would at least fix that which would be a huge step forwards.

It is more expensive and without any greater quality. 

"However, the Rail Fares Index shows fares have gone up by an average of 121.3 per cent between 1995 and 2017, with long distance fares increasing the most."

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-should-we-nationalise-the-railways

[Crazyfool01]

4 hours ago, Wanderlei said:

Theresa made the mistake of sending me a letter through the post with her image on it today. Had a great time defacing it! Small things...

has she got a small thing then ?

[oneeye]

Edited May 21, 2017 by oneeye

[Mardy]

On 20/05/2017 at 0:55 PM, Mr.Tease said:

It really is such a nasty move (as was May's initial legislation on this)- this obsession with 'immigrants coming here and taking money' leads to some nasty policies and decisions and really doesn't look into the humanity of it. My dad was from Egypt and when he was terminally ill and dying, the home office refused his two sisters a visa to visit him before he died. Just nastiness.

Man, that's just fucking inhuman. Awful stuff. I'm so sorry.

[Wanderlei]

16 hours ago, crazyfool1 said:

has she got a small thing then ?

She has quite a large thing on her head!

[___S_o_m_a__]

On 2017-5-20 at 1:39 PM, DeanoL said:

The UK rail system isn't actually that bad though. Nor is it that expensive outside of small peak time windows. You just need to know how and when to book tickets to get travel at reasonable rates...

I'll take arguments about the pros and cons of a nationalised / privatised rail network all day long but please don't do yourself a complete disservice by putting any of the blame onto passengers.

It's the same nonsensical point made by the privateers about the energy market that customers should "shop around" for the best deals.

Shopping around in a rigged market?

Please. 

[adjwholovesmusic]

If you have supported Labour all your life then how on earth could you vote Tory!! It's a ludicrous idea. I was at a Rally in West Kirby yesterday and Jeremy Corbyn spoke with passion in front of 10,000 people. There were no minders, police or anything heavy handed or any thing that hinted anything was staged. A young lad at the front had a panic attack and Jeremy Corbyn, brought the lad onto the stage with his back to the crowd and spoke with him for 2 minutes to ensure he was ok. No matter what shit people fling at him he is in tune with people. He sticks to his principles and understands the struggle that people go through which is why he understood that the Catholics were being discriminated against, why he stood up against apartheid long before it became the cool thing to do. He supports the struggle not the bombing and the killing. He understood very early on that the only way the peace process was ever going to get off the ground was by dialogue and bringing people together. This trust doesn't happen overnight so to denounce any party whether it be the IRA, the British army or the Unionists would not be in keeping with his approach. To denounce them together and accept that all sides needed to stop the violence was the only way things were going to move forward. He continues to stick with principle and shows he is at least consistent and recognises that  dropping bombs isn't and never will be the answer. 

A principled, thoughtful Politician who understands peoples needs and recognises their struggle. What more could you want? 

Edited May 21, 2017 by adjwholovesmusic

[DeanoL]

On 2017-5-20 at 3:50 PM, Justiceforcedave said:

Try living in the South my friend! Trains are overcrowded, regularly late or cancelled for no reason, Southern rail is facing strike action or some other kind of screw up on pretty much a monthly basis. It's the worst service ever and costs people money, jobs and time!

Southern have been having a bad patch recently but have they always been that problematic?

3 hours ago, ___S_o_m_a__ said:

I'll take arguments about the pros and cons of a nationalised / privatised rail network all day long but please don't do yourself a complete disservice by putting any of the blame onto passengers.

It's the same nonsensical point made by the privateers about the energy market that customers should "shop around" for the best deals.

Shopping around in a rigged market?

Please. 

I think you're missing my point. Customers shouldn't have to shop around, and indeed the rail companies don't encourage it. But the fact is you can get cheaper tickets outside of the most peak of peak times. But it's biased towards those who can comprehend the labyrinthine rail system. Rather than being available to anyone. Demand is also far lower than supply on most journeys.

When you nationalise you remove the profit motive which results an whole slew of changes. Yes, in the current system tickets wouldn't get any cheaper, but you wouldn't necessarily have the current system as you wouldn't be motivated by profit. And you'd have a system that worked together in unity, rather than train companies knowing that certain routes are profitable and others just a requirement that they have to meet to the minimum standard possible in order to keep the franchise. You don't get wackiness like the current Birmingham to London route, where there's a mainline service which stops only at main stations (Coventry, Rugby, Milton Keynes) and a different service that stops at all the small stations. Owned by different companies. So in order to make the smaller service profitable they undercut the other service on price, so people take a train that twice as long to save money, which of course eats into the profits of the other company that run the mainline stations line so their prices go up...

Or the over-crowded trains with made up of 40% mostly empty first class carriages. 

You'd instead be able to focus on how to get everyone from A to B in the most sensible manner possible and as cheaply as possible. It'd be a big job. You'd have to completely re-do the entire routing system for the country. Which of course, you can't even do at the moment as so many companies own so many different bits of it. It's not just a matter of taking the current system and having the government own it.

[eFestivals]

7 hours ago, DeanoL said:

You'd have to completely re-do the entire routing system for the country. Which of course, you can't even do at the moment as so many companies own so many different bits of it.

not really true. Network Rail are in charge of the timetabling.

As I've already pointed out, there's very little that can be changed because the system is running at capacity for much of the time.

There's lots of good reasons to nationalise rail, but an improvement just by the fact of nationalisation isn't one of them - and your take on how everything will suddenly be wonderful is why politicians shy away from doing it. They won't be able to deliver on that expectation.

Delivering improvements will take shit loads of extra cash - resources - which means the shift of resources from one thing to another. A better anything will mean less of something else we'd like.

[clarkete]

33 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Deivering improvements will take shit loads of extra cash - resources - which means the shift of resources from one thing to another. A better anything will mean less of something else we'd like.

Agreed then, same as now, but it would  be in "our" hands.

Glad you agree it's a good idea 

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, clarkete said:

Agreed then, same as now, but it would  be in "our" hands.

Glad you agree it's a good idea 

I agree it's a good idea for everything but the expectations people have for it - which is where it'll all come tumbling down, unfortunately.

There's no magic fix, for the railways or anything else. 

[clarkete]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

I agree it's a good idea for everything but the expectations people have for it - which is where it'll all come tumbling down, unfortunately.

There's no magic fix, for the railways or anything else. 

There is. 

Getting the tories out. 

[zahidf]

The 'Dementia tax' is going down really badly apparently. I wouldnt be surprised if it gets dropped sharpish

[eFestivals]

Just now, clarkete said:

There is. 

Getting the tories out. 

And you've just proven my point.

Getting the tories out does nothing by itself. Only doing things better than the tories is something better than the tories - and by default being not-a-tory is not better than a tory.

It's about what you can do, and nothing else. Venezuela - once lauded by Jezza as the solution to everything  - isn't run by tories, and it's fucked.