news & politics:discussion

[steviewevie]

fiscal drag apparently.

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

worth reading all of that thread from Paul Mason...

 

[Haan]

14 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

 

great thread

[Ryan1984]

 

[topmarksbri]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

worth reading all of that thread from Paul Mason...

 

I agree with this but it's going to be a tough sell to get the public to sign up to what is essentially MMT. All media coverage treats the economy as it's a household budget. Labour always poll weak on the economy and coming out and saying that national debt not really a bad thing and we can essentially print more money won't help that even if true - Labour need to think about how to frame it. 

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, topmarksbri said:

I agree with this but it's going to be a tough sell to get the public to sign up to what is essentially MMT. All media coverage treats the economy as it's a household budget. Labour always poll weak on the economy and coming out and saying that national debt not really a bad thing and we can essentially print more money won't help that even if true - Labour need to think about how to frame it. 

yeah, very true

[mcshed]

52 minutes ago, Ryan1984 said:

 

Even without Kevin that photo is ridiculous, the lengths Sunak goes to not look as short as he is silly.

[Ozanne]

This was a really good line earlier from Starmer:

 

 

[steviewevie]

Lewis Goodall on newsnight last night talking about borrowing....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p098knqz

[mcshed]

 

Nicola lying.

[Haan]

30 minutes ago, topmarksbri said:

I agree with this but it's going to be a tough sell to get the public to sign up to what is essentially MMT. All media coverage treats the economy as it's a household budget. Labour always poll weak on the economy and coming out and saying that national debt not really a bad thing and we can essentially print more money won't help that even if true - Labour need to think about how to frame it. 

I think we can potentially attack Tories on being fiscally weak, they've missed all their deficit targets since 2010. But yeah economic literacy (mine included, I've only recently learnt this stuff) amongst the public is weak

[steviewevie]

 

[mattiloy]

22 minutes ago, Haan said:

I think we can potentially attack Tories on being fiscally weak, they've missed all their deficit targets since 2010. But yeah economic literacy (mine included, I've only recently learnt this stuff) amongst the public is weak

Thats the theng. Its about educating- they arent that difficult concepts to grasp - possibly slightly counterintuitive when relating it to yourself but certainly not more so than the Mutually Assured Destruction reason for the ’nuclear deterrant’.

There are relatable things though, most football clubs exist in a state of permanent debt, the better ones invest wisely in recruitment, youth development and staff and manage to be successful enough to turn a profit. Thats what the country needs to do. Speculate to accumulate as they say. And usually the highest/quickest return on investment comes from the basics- like when reducing a houses energy costs you start with the cavity insulation- cheap as you like but effective and the rest is pointless without it.

So labour needs to take this argument to the tories, find the allegories to relate it to the masses. It wont win by agreeing with the tories.

[Ayrshire Chris]

29 minutes ago, mcshed said:

 

Nicola lying.

So many of her answers were started by phrases such as ‘I think so, possibly, to the best of my knowledge, maybe, I can’t recollect, we have to differ on that, blah blah.  The committee had four snp members. An independent and one Tory and the best was the labour MSP.  There’s more to come . 

[steviewevie]

https://www.politics.co.uk/comment/2021/03/03/the-real-motive-behind-todays-budget

[SheffJeff]

Something doesn't compute.

[SwedgeAntilles]

3 hours ago, Ayrshire Chris said:

So many of her answers were started by phrases such as ‘I think so, possibly, to the best of my knowledge, maybe, I can’t recollect, we have to differ on that, blah blah.  The committee had four snp members. An independent and one Tory and the best was the labour MSP.  There’s more to come . 

I'd be very surprised. They had 7 hours and they got nothing. Time to move on to the 'save the union' plan b. Looking forward to seeing what that is. 

[mcshed]

9 hours ago, SwedgeAntilles said:

they got nothing

It was highly unlikely that she was going to admit to any wrong doing so they got what they where after, a tale of specifics on meetings she'd previously completely forgotten about and total lack of recall on important other issues and a lot of you can't prove that about allegations. It's clear to anyone following that she has lied but that's fairly standard for politicians so her supporters won't care whilst her opponents howl.

How much it effects those swing voters whose decisions might change the result of an election is unclear, I suspect it removes some of Nicola's personal sheen she becomes another politician when at one point she was a star but I don't think it'll send too many running.

My understanding of events is that Salmond was well known to be handsy and in the wake of the #metoo movement people came forward. Nicola lied about being aware of these sorts of rumours as she didn't want to be seen as having ignored things but got muddled about exactly when she'd heard of the specific allegations. The SNP tried to over haul the complaints procedure but like most SNP overhauls this was a shambles. There were leaks between Salmond's team and the government and there were leaks from the government to the press but Nicola's direct involvement in either is dubious and unprovable. The legal case against Salmond was a loser and the government where slow to give up on it wasting public money. The SNP have been slow to hand over evidence.

As scandals go it isn't as explosive as some people make out but it isn't great.  I think the delay to the education report should cause more outrage as the collapse of the Scottish education system is one of the worst things about this period of SNP dominance and ultimately for all the lying and possible conspiracy this scandal only really effects Salmond and his accusers. The SNP will still win in May the question remains whether or not they get a pro-Indy majority. I suspect they probably will but I've been wrong in the past.

[Ozanne]

 

[steviewevie]

23 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

 

They've got David Frost in there and got rid of Gove, and this will be down to him.

[Ozanne]

1 hour ago, mcshed said:

It was highly unlikely that she was going to admit to any wrong doing so they got what they where after, a tale of specifics on meetings she'd previously completely forgotten about and total lack of recall on important other issues and a lot of you can't prove that about allegations. It's clear to anyone following that she has lied but that's fairly standard for politicians so her supporters won't care whilst her opponents howl.

How much it effects those swing voters whose decisions might change the result of an election is unclear, I suspect it removes some of Nicola's personal sheen she becomes another politician when at one point she was a star but I don't think it'll send too many running.

My understanding of events is that Salmond was well known to be handsy and in the wake of the #metoo movement people came forward. Nicola lied about being aware of these sorts of rumours as she didn't want to be seen as having ignored things but got muddled about exactly when she'd heard of the specific allegations. The SNP tried to over haul the complaints procedure but like most SNP overhauls this was a shambles. There were leaks between Salmond's team and the government and there were leaks from the government to the press but Nicola's direct involvement in either is dubious and unprovable. The legal case against Salmond was a loser and the government where slow to give up on it wasting public money. The SNP have been slow to hand over evidence.

As scandals go it isn't as explosive as some people make out but it isn't great.  I think the delay to the education report should cause more outrage as the collapse of the Scottish education system is one of the worst things about this period of SNP dominance and ultimately for all the lying and possible conspiracy this scandal only really effects Salmond and his accusers. The SNP will still win in May the question remains whether or not they get a pro-Indy majority. I suspect they probably will but I've been wrong in the past.

Thanks for writing the general points down, I haven’t paid too much attention to it but watched some of the committee yesterday so I appreciate a bit of the detail behind it. 

[DeanoL]

 

16 hours ago, topmarksbri said:

I agree with this but it's going to be a tough sell to get the public to sign up to what is essentially MMT. All media coverage treats the economy as it's a household budget. Labour always poll weak on the economy and coming out and saying that national debt not really a bad thing and we can essentially print more money won't help that even if true - Labour need to think about how to frame it. 

But to an extent the Tories will do some of that work as they're already having to explain how they've spent all this money on the COVID response and how they're going to fund all the spending in the budget yesterday. People have already been asking "how are they paying for this?" and there's been a degree of side-stepping from the Tories - "we will need tax increases in the future" but if they stick to that line it's going to mean they need to actually have tax increases in the next manifesto, which will not be popular.

Basically the next few years will be the Tories investing, without it looking like they are investing, so they can keep the "household budget" pretence going. 

[mattiloy]

Wish this country would sack off the royal family. What a bunch of tedious meffs.

[Gilgamesh69]

Just now, mattiloy said:

Wish this country would sack off the royal family. What a bunch of tedious meffs.

But they bring in so much to the economy! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)