Voting quandry

This article sets out for me why voting Labour under the current leadership is likely to be a step too far, whatever their manifesto might say. The author is a Tory and the spin in the article clearly reflects that, but it does highlight what we would get with a government in which McDonnell is such an influential figure. My usual caveat: some people have found it difficult to penetrate these Times links. Best of luck. Makes interesting reading whatever your political persuasion.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/marxist-mcdonnell-is-no-laughing-matter-pf5vfhg92?shareToken=bf11ffd2caee5fa673c98995fe3ed99e

The majority of parcels in the UK are under 2 kilos. Royal Mail and Hermes prices are comparable. All the other companies charge more for small/medium parcels, although they're cheaper for heavier items.

Royal Mail employees have better pay and conditions, so somebody's making money.

DHL and Hermes are German-owned. Yodel is owned by the Barclay Brothers.

People won't stop wanting parcels delivered. They'll hopefully switch back to Royal Mail.

Maizie I would have thought my posts in general made it very clear what sort of world I'd like but the relentless rightward direction of our society does make me very sad. This election campaign is just so dreadful and I see absolutely no hope of any material shift in any of these sorts of issues ( fair taxation, fair pay, a decent benefit system) in what is left of the rest of my lifetime. It just seems to me that there has been a huge attitudinal shift that seems so entrenched, it's beyond any reasonable debate.

Here's more stuff that will not go in the manifesto.
Parliamentary reports showing the problems that mainly the public accounts committee has come up with.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2017/05/01/key-reports-housing-ambulances-gps_n_16365036.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&ir=UK+Politics

Well that's cloud cuckoo land isn't it - paying and employing workers properly and curbing profits so as you were.

Sad comment, Rigby?

Don't you think that fair pay and fair taxation are worthwhile aspirations?

I agree withdj the jobs couldn't possibly disappear -- the huge increase in online shopping is surely not going to change. What should happen of course is that consumers should have to pay more realistic prices for their goods and deliveries and business owners shouldn't be making the huge profits they do in some cases. Well that's cloud cuckoo land isn't it - paying and employing workers properly and curbing profits so as you were. May certainly won't be putting anything about any of this in her manifesto.

labourlist.org/2017/05/labour-would-put-10000-extra-police-on-the-streets-corbyn-promises/

It's been costed.

The work is still needed. Parcels still need to be delivered.
We really shouldn't be happy to have company bosses fiddling the system, not paying tax and NI, not paying the minimum wage. It's a question of ethics, not just economics.
There are laws to cover whether someone is self-employed or employed by someone else.

DJ I have a lot of sympathy for those affected. But I also wonder whether reclassification would result in many of these jobs disappearing?

GG of course you are right, we have to wait for the manifestos before we can properly consider the election proposals. But the point here is that Labour have announced a supposedly fully costed initiative re 10000 new police officers in advance of publication of their manifesto. If they choose to do that they have to expect people to challenge them on it at that time. I'm sure all the parties' election teams are now avidly reading all gransnet posts to gauge UK public reaction!

kittysjones.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/gig-economy-companies-exploit-workers-and-are-free-riding-on-the-welfare-state/

This will pay for the extra police.

"It is estimated that falsely classifying workers as self-employed is costing the UK up to £314m per year in lost tax and national insurance contributions.

A recent study has found that the average self-employed contractor is now paid less than in 1995."

And ensure that these people are paid a decent wage.

Nicely explained Maizie. I am always surprised more is not said about the level of personal debt.

...isn't that they don't have great ideas how to spend money, just where it's coming from.

I'm not sure that any government, of any colour, is going to solve that problem.

As I read it we have a number of inter-related problems. Firstly, we have low growth and low productivity.

Discussed here: sluggerotoole.com/2017/04/09/so-it-turns-out-the-uks-economic-record-was-pretty-average-even-before-brexit/

Secondly; we have a low tax take because a) a very significant number of people in work aren't earning enough to pay income tax (Richard Murphy here: www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/05/02/19-of-all-people-at-work-in-the-uk-dont-make-enough-to-pay-tax/) and b)big businesses, the really high profit makers, have very sophisticated tax 'minimising' schemes, c)a great deal of private wealth goes to tax havens offshore and is not subject to UK tax, d) international companies have an amazing ability to make a minimal'paper' profit while earning million/billions from UK consumers...

Thirdly; neo-liberal economics which cuts state spending to the bone leads to less money circulating in the economy (as I argued in another post), which also reduces tax take.

There is also a worryingly massive amount of personal debt.

The theory that non 'productive' state employees will become entrepreneurs or take jobs in wealth producing private companies really doesn't seem to have worked out very well. Neither does the theory that the wealth created by private enterprise will 'trickle down' (it's mostly squirrelled off abroad...)

I'm not a student of economics but I do try to read sufficient to keep reasonably informed. I know that the analogy of the National budget to a household budget is a false one but I can't help feeling that in one respect you could say that a household wouldn't prosper if the person/people who earned the money to support it stuck it all under the mattress, or gambled it away, or spent it on booze, instead of contributing enough to support the needs of the household. Which is, to me, analogous to all that money that is leaching out of the country instead of staying in the system.

I thought the IFS report which dd posted earlier was interesting in that it seemed to exemplify neo-liberal economic thinking.

Won't we see this in the manifesto Fitzy? I am sure they will be torn apart by all the pundits but what I am not sure about is if there will actually be anything in the Tory one. May is not speaking to the public but only invited audiences, she is not answering questions just chiming out stock phrases, she does not want to share what she will agree re Brexit and has declared she doesn't like opposition so why would she tell us what they would do if they were the next government.

Don't get me wrong I can see the problems with Labour but I am prepared to wait to see their costed offerings. It is interesting that people still put their faith in the Tories after the last seven years without asking for costs. Perhaps they have not been touched by the cuts - so far.

Doesn't one of the outside bodies fact check the costings for each of the parties?

Elo, DD, the issue with Abbott and Co isn't that they don't have great ideas how to spend money, just where it's coming from.
Spot on re TMs question dodging. No interest in Watson's digs. But Labour just don't seem to understand basic arithmetic.

Tom Watson came out with a dig at May (and I'm paraphrasing). He said thet people were worried about robots taking their jobs, but we already have a bot as PM.

Strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, stro...

Is anybody playing Election Bingo? Apparently you tick a box every time May says "strong and stable" and then have a gin. The challenge is to remain coherent at the end of the evening.

Amber Rudd speaks with forked tongue! As with social care, healthcare and education, lack of policing is even hitting the Tory heartlands, so it would be a huge mistake for the government to continue covering up. The trouble is, of course, that these areas have huge Tory majorities, but it will eventually affect marginal seats. Fingers crossed!

Diane Abbott wasn't particularly impressive I agree but it's easy not to make a mistake if you don't actually answer questions and keep repeating learned phrases that have been fed to you by advisors (the "strong and stable" line has become a joke with almost all commentators).

Theresa May constantly dodges questions. During the Marr interview, when asked about nurses' pay falling by 14%, she evaded the question completely and reeled out a sentence (that I'm sure many people will recognise as almost word-for-word from the July '16 speech): "I want a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few" and went on to say "If I am elected, what we will be doing is working to create a strong economy that creates security and higher paid jobs for people". It's been 7 years coming and this aspiration seems further away than ever. As to helping everyone and not the privileged few, it sounds a very noble goal but she and her party have taken money away from the poor to help the rich.

I'm not in a quandary at all about voting, so I just watch and try to make sense of what's going on.

Still waiting for the announcement of our local Conservative candidate. I've heard selection is ruffling a few feathers. There hasn't been so much excitement here since Oliver Cromwell stayed in one of the local pubs!

Would you rather vote for a party that is going to have an extra 10,000 police, despite the fact that Abbott made a mistake in her number of zeros, or a party that is going to cut another 13,000 police?

"The Tories have cut police numbers by well over 20,000 since 2010. They have also broken their pledge, made by George Osborne and repeated by Theresa May to protect police funding.

Yet they are in denial about the effects of their cuts, with Theresa May recently telling the House of Commons that “crime is at a record low”. This is untrue. Worse, analysis of Home Office data conducted for my office shows that total rates and numbers for charges or summonses have fallen. Police effectiveness is falling sharply.

There is more recorded crime, contrary to the Prime Minister’s assertions. Some of this is due to better reporting, and some is due to the soaring levels of relatively new internet-related crime. So the fall in the number of charges or summonses for offences means that overall the charge rate for offences has fallen sharply. This falling rate of summonses and convictions includes serious offences, such as violence against the person, sexual crime and others.

Of course, we all want to see greater genuine efficiency in our public services. But efficiency is rarely achieved by cuts. Often they have the opposite effect. Since 2010 roughly one in seven police officers have been axed. A decline in police effectiveness and efficiency has followed. It was entirely predictable, and was predicted by Labour.

There is more on the way, as over £300 million has been cut from the police grant in both the last financial year and in the current one. In real terms (after inflation) the funding cut is set to be just under ten per cent. This is equivalent to more than 13,000 police officers."

Amber Rudd refuses to rule out further police cuts.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-cuts-policy-amber-rudd-tories-conservatives-election-2017-labour-officers-a7712646.html

It's strange that some of the TV journalists are quite different on Twitter. Kuenssberg is very pro-government on TV, but she's much more open and sharper on Twitter.

To be honest the interview seemed pretty fair to me. Nick Ferrari did put her under pressure when it was clear she was in trouble, but she should have been properly prepared.
Not sure about May.

May has decided not to give her version of events, so I guess we'll never know. I feel very uneasy about clandestine meetings and I hope Juncker and the other main players won't agree to any more. It seems to me that it's May's style to keep things close to her chest. Even a number of Conservatives have complained.

I agree with you about DA and I also think that there needs to be a review of police forces. The first step would be to abolish the Police Commissioners. Hardly anybody votes for them and they're just a political appointment and a waste of money. The latest idea here is to amalgamate the police and fire service - both under the command of the Police Commissioner, who would presumably get a pay rise.

My district is the largest in area in Essex, but we don't have a single police station. A few months ago, I was assaulted and had dealings with the police, but it was all done by mobile. I had an assigned officer, but getting hold of him was a nightmare. Sometimes he was on night shifts, so I had to wait until midnight to ring him! There was nobody else who could deal with me and no physical presence at all. The crime rate here is quite low, but not surprisingly it's risen since the PCSOs went. All the major parties have an increase in police numbers on their local election manifesto. There's been a 3.5% increase in council tax for the police and we haven't a clue how it's being spent.

I have to admit I didn't see it Fitzy - just the extracts they have shown but I did see her on the 'Jo Coburn show'. On and on and on in the nastiest tone - and I am not a fan of DA - and then she turned to the Conservative MP and her tone changed completely. I am so fed up with poor journalism. It is not their job to destroy people but to illicit the actual information. I do not need them to make up my mind for me but to make the information available.

As for May I really do not know on what basis she is considered a safe pair of hands and this next government will change our future - one way or the other - for the rest our lives and a good deal of our children's and grandchildren's.

GG there was no entrapment. She just didn't know the figures. It was embarrassing but it doesn't mean she can't do the job. We have all heard her speak many times and she is normally very capable. But she messed this up entirely and there really is no point in trying to defend her. My earlier point seems to me much more important: Labour's new policing policy does has clear issues, both in terms of costing and use of resources.
As for May, you may well be right but I'm now wondering what on earth really did happen at this dinner and just which side most deserves criticism.