Labour U-Turn on the single market

steampowered

adindas wrote: »

“Sadiq Khan’s manifesto specifically said that Londoners won’t pay a penny more for their travel in 2020 than they do today. No ifs no buts"

You missed out the sentence immediately before which said "Freeze TfL transport fares for four years".

As was made clear in the manifesto, and extremely clear in media coverage before the mayoral election, this was a pledge which applied to TfL fares. These have all been frozen.

You cannot seriously be telling me that you thought the pledge covered travelcards and the cost of private train fares over which the mayor has no control??? I am sure if the government gave Sadiq Khan the ability to freeze travelcards he would freeze those to, but that is not in his power.

Whether you like Sadiq Khan or you don't, this is an unreasonable criticism as it relies on an unreasonable and incorrect reading from a single sentence in his manifesto which has been dragged out of context.

I am waiting someone will complain to the guardian.or ICO if you think their statement is incorrect. Please do it and post the guardian response here.

The guardian article is crystal clear that travelcards were not covered by the pledge, as TfL has no control over them.

The bit you have quoted is not an opinion of the article. It is a quote from a Liberal Democrat assembly member who is no doubt trying to make a bit of political hay by deliberately misinterpreting a sentence in the manifesto and trying to convince gullible people that a manifesto has been breached.

zagfles wrote: »

Wrong it's not 6.4 million, it's 6.4 billion. It's the second time you've written million when it's obviously billion - try to get your facts straight before critising others.

It is a typo, as was immediately obvious to you. Not a factual error.

I'm sick and tired of people making unjustified, ridiculously cynical attacks on politicians (of whatever party) who are trying their best based on incorrect facts. We should be having political discussions based on facts, not on a bunch of made up tosh.

zagfles

HornetSaver wrote: »

Tbey did run a good campaign, and people like you are directly responsible for the constitutional difficulty we've found ourselves in since the election. The fact is that Jeremy Corbyn's policy platform represents Labour's least electable one in living memory. I'm not forgetting 1983 by the way.

And yet, due to the complacency and sneering of those who with very good reason find the prospect of him running the country utterly ridiculous, Corbyn's Labour came within a relatively small number of seats of being able to form a minority government with the support of nationalists. Attacking someone and simply arrogantly assuming that anyone with a brain will obviously agree with you without further explanation may be a lot of fun, but it doesn't convince people to GOTV for the alternative, and frankly is more likely to rile up those who would otherwise have been apathetic to vote for him. This actually appears to have happened with regards to the youth vote.

The result they should have got would have been something comparable to the Tories in 1997. The fact that this didn't happen is the fault of those who simply assumed it was a done deal.

There's probably a lot of truth in that - we saw exactly the same with Trump and Brexit. Everyone was sneering at the "stupidity" of Trump and Brexit supporters...the same has happened again. Well, almost...

zagfles

steampowered wrote: »

It is a typo, as was immediately obvious to you. Not a factual error.

I'm sick and tired of people making unjustified, ridiculously cynical attacks on politicians (of whatever party) who are trying their best based on incorrect facts. We should be having political discussions based on facts, not on a bunch of made up tosh.

You wrote it twice, and didn't correct adindas when he wrote it. That sounds like misreading, rather than a typo. You know, similar to misreading that the IFS said "it won't work" about the full Labour manifesto rather than a specific element of it.

adindas

steampowered wrote: »

You missed out the sentence immediately before which said "Freeze TfL transport fares for four years".

As was made clear in the manifesto, and extremely clear in media coverage before the mayoral election, this was a pledge which applied to TfL fares. These have all been frozen.

You cannot seriously be telling me that you thought the pledge covered travelcards and the cost of private train fares over which the mayor has no control??? I am sure if the government gave Sadiq Khan the ability to freeze travelcards he would freeze those to, but that is not in his power.

Whether you like Sadiq Khan or you don't, this is an unreasonable criticism as it relies on an unreasonable and incorrect reading from a single sentence in his manifesto which has been dragged out of context.

The guardian article is crystal clear that travelcards were not covered by the pledge, as TfL has no control over them.

The bit you have quoted is not an opinion of the article. It is a quote from a Liberal Democrat assembly member who is no doubt trying to make a bit of political hay by deliberately misinterpreting a sentence in the manifesto and trying to convince gullible people that a manifesto has been breached.

Keep put forward the pointless argument that the travel card is not under London Mayor control ???? Use the argument for people who do not know about tfl and Dft not for people who knows Tfl well.

You even do not bother to ask this question again because you have lost the argument. This is your questions.
Why do you need to buy a travelcard for your daily commute if you are only using TfL services?

Surprisingly I will need to explain this to someone an MSE member who are using public transport in London on daily basis.

Read the article below together with my comments which is related to your pointless argument that travel card is not under his control. People are even spell a strong word, "shameless liar"

I am not quoting the city hall spokesman as I could understand they are getting paid using taxpayer's money to defend his bos. Thus he will say everything in order to look good to people who are not much aware about this issue and do not have impact on them.

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/khan-accused-of-lying-over-failure-to-extend-tfl-fares-freeze-to-travelcards

20.01.17
Khan accused of lying over failure to extend TfL fares freeze to travelcards

London mayor Sadiq Khan has been accused of reneging on his pre-election pledge of a TfL-wide fares freeze after it was revealed that it would have been possible for him to freeze the price of travelcards.

A leaked document acquired by the MayorWatch blog via a FoI request showed that TfL provided costings for freezing all of its fares, only a few days after Khan was elected to City Hall.

Comment:
The statement above explains everything about his blatant lie

When announcing the four-year freeze, Khan claimed that he was unable to freeze fares such as travelcards and daily caps on Oyster payments as these partially covered fares controlled by the DfT.

Comment:
You could always issue a special London travel card only to be used for the transport under the control of TFL ? How easy it is with contactless technology ??? Many people living in London zone 1,2 (say) traveling using travel card in London do not need access to Dft train, they just need TFL tube, bussess, Tfl Train, Overground which is fully under TFL control. People could easily see that many people who need the DFL train are not even living in London but outside London, just working in London. So they are not even Londoners who are paying their council tax in London.


Greater London Authority (GLA) members have now asked him to apologise to Londoners for lying, calling his approach to the situation “shameless”.

Comment:
So there are reasonable number of people who have spelled out this words “shameless liar" It is hard to believe that politicians are even not ashamed to say to defend the thing which is very obvious for people who knows much about London and Tfl.

I repeat that again what the London Mayor was saying:
“Sadiq Khan’s manifesto specifically said that Londoners won’t pay a penny more for their travel in 2020 than they do today. No ifs no buts"

I am a Londoner and pay my council tax in London. Like many other Londoners; since his manifesto, we have seen our annual travel card (saved in Oystercard) increased last year and will keep increasing this year and many years to come !!!!!!!!!!!!!! .


“From the minute it emerged the mayor’s fares freeze would fall well short of what he’d promised, he has consistently claimed he could do no more,” said Keith Prince, transport spokesman for the GLA’s Conservative group.

“He has repeatedly insisted he cannot freeze all fares and was adamant that he received no fares advice from Transport for London. The uncovering of this document proves what many of us have suspected for a long time – that he was simply not telling the truth.”

The figures in the document revealed that the costs to TfL of including the travelcards in the fare freeze “would be an additional £660m over five years”, amounting to £132m per year.

However, the document also estimates that travelcards, daily caps and national rail fares will increase by Retail Price Inflation (RPI) in line with government policy and the current agreement between TfL and TOCs.

Moby

he IFS bases its assumptions for government spending on that of a household economy. In reality a nation states finances work far far differently to that. I know that for the public the IFS is something to take seriously, but in truth it’s advice should be placed where it belongs – in the dustbin.

zagfles

Moby wrote: »

he IFS bases its assumptions for government spending on that of a household economy. In reality a nation states finances work far far differently to that. I know that for the public the IFS is something to take seriously, but in truth it’s advice should be placed where it belongs – in the dustbin.

The IFS are well respected across the political spectrum, they are often quoted by left wing as well as right wing politicians. They've been commissioned to do studies for poverty charities such as the JRF and CPAG.

I think I'll respect their opinion a bit more than someone who can't do a simple bit of arithmetic and thinks the Tories will have problem because of the EVEL bill :rotfl:

Moby

zagfles wrote: »

The IFS are well respected across the political spectrum, they are often quoted by left wing as well as right wing politicians. They've been commissioned to do studies for poverty charities such as the JRF and CPAG.

I think I'll respect their opinion a bit more than someone who can't do a simple bit of arithmetic and thinks the Tories will have problem because of the EVEL bill :rotfl:

Agreed but their word is not the tablets of stone handed to Moses like some think.

hallmark

Labour & their supporters have quoted IFS figures tons of times when it suited them. How hypocritical to claim they aren't trustworthy when the figures don't support them.

adindas

hallmark wrote: »

Labour & their supporters have quoted IFS figures tons of times when it suited them. How hypocritical to claim they aren't trustworthy when the figures don't support them.

This is what Sir Allan Sugar said:
Lord Sugar says Corbyn voters 'didn't know what they were voting for' 'Those people that maybe voted for him are quite bright and educated but maybe not very experienced in life'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-results-lord-alan-sugar-opinion-jeremy-corbyn-labour-voters-minority-government-a7781421.html

I fully agree with that, They might be bright but they might not know how politicians are using many ways to lure voters. The most common one is "say everything what voters wanted to hear even though it is not going to work due to limited resources." once elected find away to get way with it.

But it seems this strategy works well recently to lure voter to vote for them.

Look at what
1. Libdem was doing regarding tuition fee under Nick Clegg
2. London Mayor Sadiq Khan manifesto reagrding London Public Transport.
3. Recent Lab our performance in the general election, less tax, free institution fee, triple lock pension, more policemen, more money to school, NHS, say every thing.

They succeeded because they know not money voters wanted to spend time to do their homework to find out how it is going to wok with limited resources. Once they get elected, find away to get away with it even though in shameless way because it is too obvious.

It does not take long before truth come out:

"Barry Gardiner hinted that Labour could switch to supporting a softer Brexit – one day after John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor, ruled out a rethink on single market membership."

While many people already know that you cannot join the single market without accepting three freedoms. Surprisingly there are still some people out there still believe it could be done.

adindas

Why No deal is better than bad deal is the right decision ?
Read this

Britain could only stay in EU on worse terms, Guy Verhofstadt says

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/britain-could-only-stay-eu-worse-terms-guy-105700796.html

In your own negotiation you are preparing to walk away if you believe bad for you. Why would politicians do that using the taxpayers money ??