the snap general election thread

bobbymotors

Several things

All this talk of 'austerity'....it's NOT austerity, it's living within your means. It's something we, as a country, HAVE to do at some point, otherwise we will eventually go bankrupt.

Also it's an inescapable fact of life that if you owe lots of money (which we do) then the very last thing you should ever do is go and borrow a load more (which Lab want to do) to spend. It's not how it works - yes it feels good for quite a while, but the debt has to be repaid at some point.

If the panels are the cause of the fire, then however terrible that is (and it truly is) as long as the panels complied with the building regulations then how can it be the council's fault? Are they deemed to be expert builders / chartered surveyors or whatever? Of course not. It's not the council's fault or the government's fault, if the panels were compliant, it's the fault of the building regulations.

I tend to largely agree with hallmark, I do think Corbyn et al are trying to make political capital out of this, he can't seem to accept that although TM didn't definitely win the election, he DEFINITELY lost. 318 to 262: That's democracy, but they seem to want to incite the public against the government in order to have another election while the going's good. Get over it JC, you lost, another chance will come, but according to law, not rabble rousing.

There may well be a movement at the moment towards JC and Lab - I've no idea - and when it is put to a ballot and if he wins that ballot then good luck to them / him. But A BALLOT, not a mob please.

hallmark

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Sorry, is this the same Jeremy Corbyn blah blah blah blah

It's the same Corbyn who's protested against everything for the last 30 years without ever yet suggesting something useful, like how we might actually pay for his wishlist of demands.

Anybody can say they want more police, more NHS, more firemen, more everything. Do you seriously think everybody DOESN'T want that? Corbyn questions everything whilst providing nothing in the way of answers.

When pressed to cite an example of his type of thinking that works he quotes Venezuela. Care to comment on that? I notice that you and his other supporters on here always go quiet when it's brought up.

bobbymotors

Sadly, there is no credible example in the world where a hard left government works.

capitalism has lots of faults, but there is nothing of any merit to compare it with: it's the best we've got.

And Venezuela....how can a country with so much oil have so many starving people? Unbelievable, yet very sadly true.

hallmark

bobbymotors wrote: »

And Venezuela....how can a country with so much oil have so many starving people? Unbelievable, yet very sadly true.

They allowed somebody like Corbyn to get in charge.

Joe_Horner

bobbymotors wrote: »

Several things

All this talk of 'austerity'....it's NOT austerity, it's living within your means. It's something we, as a country, HAVE to do at some point, otherwise we will eventually go bankrupt.

Also it's an inescapable fact of life that if you owe lots of money (which we do) then the very last thing you should ever do is go and borrow a load more (which Lab want to do) to spend. It's not how it works - yes it feels good for quite a while, but the debt has to be repaid at some point.

No, you're making the Maggie T error of confusing a National economy for a household budget. It's a common mistake that's been very widely (in fact, almost universally) debunked by serious economists the world over.

GreatApe

steampowered wrote: »

I agree with you that there is sometimes a price to be put on human lives - as unsavoury as it sounds. It would always be possible to save more people by increasing spending on the NHS, road safety, suicide prevention, foreign aid and so on.

But that doesn't mean politicians shouldn't be held accountable. If the NHS budget was slashed by 40% and that caused additional deaths, then yes I would hold the government accountable for making that decision.

That is just a very ignorant way of thinking, human lives do have a finite value if for no other reason than there is only a finite capacity for a country to produce goods and services. If it cost £1 trillion to save a life should we do it, no of course not. So its simply not a moral question as much as people would like to frame it that way its a question about a number. Now we could argue if the number if too high or too low but it exists. The NHS puts a figure of £25,000 on one quality life year.

If the government cut the NHS budget by 40% or increased it by 40% its not their fault. In the same way neither of us would praise may for saving 10,000 lives by increasing the NHS budget by £10 billion it would be stupid to praise the women herself as it wouldn't be her doing it. Now if some rich person donated £10 billion of his own fortune to the NHS and that resulted in 10,000 fewer lives lost then it would be praise to him. And rich people do try to do this but they very reasonable target far more lives saved by doing things like giving out free malaria nets or putting money into genetic research etc.

You should not blame the government for cuts nor praise them for additional funding. Its a decision by society to put a figure on a quality life year and then any risk that costs less to fix than that should be fixed and any risk which costs more should simply be accepted as a risk.

Installing sprinklers in your own home is something you can do, I haven't done so and nor has any other house I have ever been in. The reason is the cost is not worth the incremental increase in safety.

Similarly - if it turns out that the 40% cuts in local authority budgets have caused deaths - then I would expect the people responsible to be held accountable, and appropriate steps taken to resolve the situation - which may mean reversing some of the cuts made to local authority budgets.

This is only true if you value life too low in your risk vs cost calculations. Which is very unlikely because councils and businesses very often over value human life by quite a margin simply because managers are not spending their own money while the risk is their own job/life. If you use the NHS figure of £25-30k for one life year then you will find that most businesses in most instances go well beyond that

However I emphasise again that any conclusions with regards to local authority budgets are very much subject to waiting and seeing the report to find out what the true causes of this fire were. Whether the problems were budgetary; or whether there was negligence on the part of the council or contractors; or whether this was simply a disaster that could not have been foreseen.

yes its important to wait for a full details of the report of what went wrong.

hallmark

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No, you're making the Maggie T error of confusing a National economy for a household budget. It's a common mistake that's been very widely (in fact, almost universally) debunked by serious economists the world over.

Are those the same "serious economists" who universally failed to recognize the global boom & the credit crunch that followed it?

You don't need to be clever to get your finances in order. Mr Micawber summed it up 160 years ago. Anybody who doesn't get it yet doesn't know history & can't do sums.

GreatApe

the stuff in the cladding PIR is apparently this stuff which looks quite fire resistant and google search seems to say the same

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKpPz8JgHOY

Maybe some manufacturing f.up not putting in the right material or something else maybe nothing at all to do with the cladding. Right now no one really knows. But it doesn't appear that the material used in the cladding is easily combustible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzD55W-Lu1g

Another video showing three different types of panel material, all seem fire resistant. The one used in theis flat was apparently the type on the right in the video. unless of course that wasn't the material in the panels or it wasn't manufactured (chemically) correctly.

hallmark

GreatApe wrote: »

yes its important to wait for a full details of the report of what went wrong.

Alas Corbyn & his supporters are doing everything possible to ensure this does not happen. As Thrugelmir pointed out, they are pouring petrol on the flames.

The reason for this is that the last thing they want is for May to be able to form a Government with the help of the DUP & issue a Queen's speech. They absolutely do not want calm, or solace for the victims. They want to stoke up the anger, encourage hate & do everything possible to see it spill out onto the streets. They're attempting to bring the Govt down.

The victims in this are mere pawns to them. Their grief is simply something to be manipulated. The absolute LAST thing that Corbyn, McDonnel et al want is for the situation to calm down & a period of stability to take it's place.

Anybody who doubts or disputes this, watch the news & it's coverage (particularly on places like the Mirror & the Guardian) over the next few days. It will be an unrelenting attempt by the left to stoke the fire at every possible opportunity. You'll even see it on here.

bobbymotors

Joe_Horner wrote: »

No, you're making the Maggie T error of confusing a National economy for a household budget. It's a common mistake that's been very widely (in fact, almost universally) debunked by serious economists the world over.

Ahh...economists, the eighth wonder of the world.

If someone OR a country owe lots of money then nobody, no where in the world should borrow money to fund any depreciating asset.

If you spend more than you earn, you'll go skint, personally or countrywide. It can be no other way.

And this Thatcher....is that the one that finally managed to defeat the miners and got us from being the laughing stock of the world in 1979 to a rich, powerful and respected country by 1990? I'm sure that's her.

Don't get me wrong, by 1990 it was time to go, but for 10 years and 3 elections she helped make the UK a better country - as long as you were prepared to make the effort.

I know the left hated her, she stood for everything they hate. But the country was a richer and better place for her governments.