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Well said Whirlwind.

The British tradition of policing has always been to have our constables unarmed whenever possible. I accept that in extraordinary circumstances, armed police are needed.

But this gradual 'acceptance' of troops on the streets, and gun totting police, fills me with unease.

Liberty and freedom is the birth right of every man, woman, and child on this island, and armed police as a routine occurrence, is not good in my book.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:l
Troops are no defence against a bomb tucked away in a suitcase. If, say, for example, I had a bomb stashed away in a bag, and walked past a soldier at a railway station, and pulled the detonator, then sadly, the soldier is not much use in stopping that.

Neither is an armed policeman or frankly, anything short of Superman. What's your point? The role of the soldiers is to be there in case of attack by a more conventional weapon (guns, knives, cars, etc) where they will have an ability to shoot at something, inspection at checkpoints (which you get a lot of at events) for suspicious looking devices and people (which I've pointed out, they have considerable expertise in), on-site trained personnel in defusing explosive devices if found (which they know more about than the police), and general deterrence (having a bunch of armed men staring at you can put people off of trying shenannigans).

Just because they're not the Man of Steel doesn't mean they're useless or that deploying them is 'tokenism'. They have a lot of expertise and skills which can be utilised in this sort of scenario, where you're watching for another potential attack of some kind.

As for your earlier point about organisation A or B providing security, it is a relevant point, as only one option was on the table. The other having been cut back to the bare bone!

Which....really has nothing to do with my noting with mild approval the speed and professionalism with which the 'critical' procedure appears to have been conducted. Saying 'Well, they'd have been able to deploy more police instead of soldiers if they hadn't cut them' right now is as about as relevant a statement to my specific comment as Corbyn complaining that there'd be less terrorists if people stopped bombing the Middle-East.

I mean, it's tangentially related to the subject, but not really to my comment at all?

Whirlwind wrote:[
I can't recall where I heard the quote but once I read/heard a statement that the role of the police is to protect the people. The role of the military is to kill the enemies of the state. If you employ the army to do the police's role then you can quickly end up in a circumstance where the populace becomes the enemy of the state simply because of training. The police are meant to protect using the minimum of force, they ask questions first. They military role is to crush opposition with overwhelming force, they shoot first and ask questions later. You never want the military to take on the role of the police (especially long term).

Probably one of Terry Pratchett's Watchmen quotes. And I'm inclined to agree with it, but I hardly think it applies to deploying a few thousand soldiers at high profile sites for a few days when there appears to be a known risk. The Rise of Facism it ain't.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Well said Whirlwind.

The British tradition of policing has always been to have our constables unarmed whenever possible. I accept that in extraordinary circumstances, armed police are needed.

But this gradual 'acceptance' of troops on the streets, and gun totting police, fills me with unease.

Liberty and freedom is the birth right of every man, woman, and child on this island, and armed police as a routine occurrence, is not good in my book.

The time has long since past thr local constable with his shirt, revolver put the police safe and maybe bob with a lee Enfield who does shooting on weekend will cut it any longer.

Armed police are out there as a message that people know they exist, they are protecting them.
And thr Army was strictly emergency, we ain't France.
Plus the fact the army provided up to 3,800 extra eyes and ears out there was handy, also freeing up armed police to be at events, to be put there, and to put motr assets into assulting thr terror network.

I find the whole idea of unarmed policing a little stupid to be honest. In the worst incidents they'll be as vulnerable and as helpless as the public. Bystanders in uniforms. Granted, the American police take it too far in the other direction, effectively executing people for moving in the wrong direction, but there is a middle ground. They seem to have it in Europe and we definitely have it here in Northern Ireland.

And yeah, May cutting police numbers was a disgrace. She's a complete fool. Yet we're stuck with either her or Corbyn. What a mess.

Surely more police leads to more crimes being found? In that they can't just sit and twiddle their thumbs?

More acts being made criminal maybe?

 Ketara wrote:

Whirlwind wrote:[
I can't recall where I heard the quote but once I read/heard a statement that the role of the police is to protect the people. The role of the military is to kill the enemies of the state. If you employ the army to do the police's role then you can quickly end up in a circumstance where the populace becomes the enemy of the state simply because of training. The police are meant to protect using the minimum of force, they ask questions first. They military role is to crush opposition with overwhelming force, they shoot first and ask questions later. You never want the military to take on the role of the police (especially long term).

Probably one of Terry Pratchett's Watchmen quotes. And I'm inclined to agree with it, but I hardly think it applies to deploying a few thousand soldiers at high profile sites for a few days when there appears to be a known risk. The Rise of Facism it ain't.

No I don't think it was from there (mainly because I've never read or watched anything by T Pratchett, not because of any lack of wanting to, just not enough time). It's more how they were used and whether the government might take their successful deployment as a green light to do it again - slow creep of what is acceptable. Remove more police officers use the military more often in times of crisis for protecting states buildings and so on. Most of the buildings recently being protected were 'state' buildings (so Buckingham Place, Downing Street, Sellafield and so on). This was on the basis that police officers could be redeployed whilst immediately putting the protection of state assets into military hands. The military didn't really do that much to protect the 'populace' and wouldn't have been needed if the police were funded better. Now take a situation in 5 years time when the Tories continue to run down the police and then bring in a new poll tax starting a new wave of riots. The police can't deal with the situation so the military is brought in again (because it worked last time) and at that point you really do have the situation where the populace could become the enemy. It's fine using the army to undertake specialist roles (for example bomb disposal) but to have them undertake general policing is not something that should be encouraged (or really accepted as it only highlights problems with existing policing infrastructure).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Surely more police leads to more crimes being found? In that they can't just sit and twiddle their thumbs?

More acts being made criminal maybe?

it's more likely that more minor acts will be taken action against. As you reduce numbers only the more serious of crimes will be dealt with because they are the priority. Things like flytipping, driving whilst using a hand held mobile phone etc will be passed on to other bodies that have much less powers to investigate (as has happened in the flytipping case).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:


The time has long since past thr local constable with his shirt, revolver put the police safe and maybe bob with a lee Enfield who does shooting on weekend will cut it any longer.

Armed police are out there as a message that people know they exist, they are protecting them.

OK so a name an event where armed police 'on the beat' has been useful for preventing a crime that could not have otherwise been done by an unarmed police officer (including with tasers). Specified task forces to deal with circumstances are fine, but armed street patrols? - it's not like the UK is a hot bed of people all toting guns at their hips.

We deployed a lot of troops in security at the Olympics, after the triumphant success of private industry in providing several thousand fewer security guards than they had contracted for.

The soldiers stood alongside the Games Makes, a dismal failure of social organisation, providing only many thousands of well-trained friendly volunteers.

This combination was a huge part of the success of making the event one of the friendliest of modern times.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We deployed a lot of troops in security at the Olympics, after the triumphant success of private industry in providing several thousand fewer security guards than they had contracted for.

The soldiers stood alongside the Games Makes, a dismal failure of social organisation, providing only many thousands of well-trained friendly volunteers.

This combination was a huge part of the success of making the event one of the friendliest of modern times.

Yet the Army was better greeted by public, calm, effective and the public trusted them far more than the G4S to be honest.
they did it on short notice, with little time to prepare yet still, it was perfectly safe.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
jhe90 wrote:


The time has long since past thr local constable with his shirt, revolver put the police safe and maybe bob with a lee Enfield who does shooting on weekend will cut it any longer.

Armed police are out there as a message that people know they exist, they are protecting them.


OK so a name an event where armed police 'on the beat' has been useful for preventing a crime that could not have otherwise been done by an unarmed police officer (including with tasers). Specified task forces to deal with circumstances are fine, but armed street patrols? - it's not like the UK is a hot bed of people all toting guns at their hips.

while we may not be the wild west they make a key symbol, and more a message that the UK is protected.
plus, while true, i doubt many criminals are gonna risk confronting a armed officer, so that point is kinda different.

its mostly symbolic to be honest, but that matters alot.

 Whirlwind wrote:

I can't recall where I heard the quote but once I read/heard a statement that the role of the police is to protect the people. The role of the military is to kill the enemies of the state.

I'd suggest that an armed terrorist *is* an enemy of the state.

 Ketara wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


In other news, it's good to see troops coming off the streets on Monday. IMO, it was an overreaction, completely against the British spirit of liberty, and another step into turning us into a Banana Republic.

See, the fact they came off the streets so fast actually reinforces my belief in the system. They announced critical status. They did what they needed to do to defuse whatever was clearly going on behind the scenes. Then they repealed it. No fuss, no dragging it out as a state of emergency. It makes me more inclined to believe in it next time, to be honest.

True...if we were Turkey for Instance the troops would still be on the streets well into the general election and beyond.

I find the levels of dread over Soldiers On British Streets! Armed Bobbys On The Beat! mildly hilarious. But then, I grew up with that sort of nonsense.

The British Army is very well versed in policing British streets. It just generally happened on the other side of the Irish Sea. Sometimes it worked reasonably well.. sometimes less so.

 Graphite wrote:
I find the levels of dread over Soldiers On British Streets! Armed Bobbys On The Beat! mildly hilarious. But then, I grew up with that sort of nonsense.

The British Army is very well versed in policing British streets. It just generally happened on the other side of the Irish Sea. Sometimes it worked reasonably well.. sometimes less so.

Also in this case the police where in command of Army armed support, over all making sure things where smoothly done.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We deployed a lot of troops in security at the Olympics, after the triumphant success of private industry in providing several thousand fewer security guards than they had contracted for.

The soldiers stood alongside the Games Makes, a dismal failure of social organisation, providing only many thousands of well-trained friendly volunteers.

This combination was a huge part of the success of making the event one of the friendliest of modern times.

This is different. This was to provide security because of a failing of the private contractor but didn't take over the role of the police (who were still responsible for arresting, investigating and prosecuting). The role of the military recently was to be the police around state controlled assets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 malamis wrote:


I'd suggest that an armed terrorist *is* an enemy of the state.

But they weren't deployed in that way at all (for example bomb disposal etc). The point is that if the government get more confident in using the military to fill shortages in policing that they have generated then you have the increasing chance that the military will at some point be opposing the general populace (e.g. poll tax riots or whatever). At that point you have a situation where the populace can become the enemy and the military are trained to use lethal overwhelming force. The Police and military are kept separate for important reasons as previously discussed.


In other news it appears that the government are now making up their own evidence over grammar schools to try and justify them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40043891

They are now claiming in their manifesto that evidence suggests that the poorest students are not discriminated against in a grammar school system. The way they evidence this? By excluding the poorest students from the figures... .

For the last 20 years, ever since that idiot Blair took office, there has been a creeping sense of authoritarianism infecting British society.

Draconian surveillance laws are introduced, creeping in bit by bit, and the police and the security services get sweeping powers to meddle in our lives and spy on us.

Naturally, all this is down under the guise of keeping us 'safe'.

Local councils spy on the contents of our wheely bins, and we as the British public, are constantly lectured on what we should and shouldn't eat, and of course, we're not trusted to raise our children without the state wagging a finger at us...

And then troops take to the streets, troops that swear an oath of allegiance not to the British people, but to the relic of the Middle Ages, our monarch.

And people think this assault upon our liberty is normal. It was a grotesque overreaction, highly politicised in the middle of a General Election campaign, and by rights, the idea of troops being deployed on our streets should have been laughed out of town.

But we accept that as normal, and that's the tragedy, because as Whirlwind rightly points out, what if we have a big riot like the poll tax riots?

Are the army going to face down the British public?

That path leads to madness. We are far too complacent with our civil liberties these days.

Government should be at the public's feet, not its throat.

 Whirlwind wrote:
...But they weren't deployed in that way at all (for example bomb disposal etc). The point is that if the government get more confident in using the military to fill shortages in policing that they have generated then you have the increasing chance that the military will at some point be opposing the general populace (e.g. poll tax riots or whatever). At that point you have a situation where the populace can become the enemy and the military are trained to use lethal overwhelming force. The Police and military are kept separate for important reasons as previously discussed...

I'd just like to point out, as a member of the military for nearly 20 years, that we do currently have armed guards at nearly every military base in the country and have done so for years. Our Rules of engagement are very, very strict, and are amended regularly to fit current UK law. However, it is made very clear to us that the use of lethal force is only to be deployed as a very last resort and that we are compelled to use the minimum force necessary, whether that's a shout, or physical restraint. We are also not immune from prosecution, and that we will be held fully accountable for our actions.

As to the deployment of troops to assist the police in times of national emergency, it is clear that the civil police would have lead authority, and all service personnel would be subordinate to them. We are very different services, we work in very different environments and the police are specifically trained to do their job, much better than we could. I am convinced that the Manchester bombing was a direct result of the cuts to police resources.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-warned-manchester-police-officer-10497970

She was warned 2 years ago that this might happen, and dismissed the concerns as scaremongering in order to continue with ideologically driven austerity cuts.

The conservatives policies have split the nation, threatened the stability of our union with Scotland and Ireland, have targeted the poorest, damaged our international standing, increased the debt, damaged our biggest trade agreement, compromised the safety of our people, and sold our infrastructure to foreign states.
The fact that people still vote for these people absolutely boggles my mind. It is only the hostility of the media to any alternative, thanks to foreign billionaires like murdoch, that keep people from voting for anyone else.

 r_squared wrote:
increased the debt,

As a complete aside from anything else you were saying there r_squared, I really, really , really do not get why people keep holding this against the Tories. It was mathematically inevitable. Practically every single government bar John Major's one at the end has run a deficit, and the operational deficit was so high after Brown left power that Cameron/May couldn't have eliminated it without effectively killing the economy for a decade through cuts so vicious there'd have been riots.

Yet I keep seeing it everywhere. 'You can't trust the Tories, they've raised the national debt!' 'They say Labour is bad? What a joke! Look at how much more debt has accumulated under the Tories'. etcetc

I keep seeing it as a soundbyte, and every time I do, I just look at it and go, 'Well yeah. But what was the alternative?' And funnily enough, not one person beating the Tories with that (somewhat imaginary) stick has turned to me and said that taxes should have been vastly increased or much more heavy cuts made.

I get your frustration at the Tories r_squared, but speaking as a still undecided voter? Anyone chucking out that line completely undermines themselves in trying to convince me one way or t'other because it tells me they're either not looking at it dispassionately or don't understand literally the first thing about economics/government finances. Which for me, makes me wonder what else they're saying is poorly sourced/understood.

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
increased the debt,

As a complete aside from anything else you were saying there r_squared, I really, really , really do not get why people keep holding this against the Tories. It was mathematically inevitable. Practically every single government bar John Major's one at the end has run a deficit, and the operational deficit was so high after Brown left power that Cameron/May couldn't have eliminated it without effectively killing the economy for a decade through cuts so vicious there'd have been riots.

Yet I keep seeing it everywhere. 'You can't trust the Tories, they've raised the national debt!' 'They say Labour is bad? What a joke! Look at how much more debt has accumulated under the Tories'. etcetc

I keep seeing it as a soundbyte, and every time I do, I just look at it and go, 'Well yeah. But what was the alternative?' And funnily enough, not one person beating the Tories with that (somewhat imaginary) stick has turned to me and said that taxes should have been vastly increased or much more heavy cuts made.

I get your frustration at the Tories r_squared, but speaking as a still undecided voter? Anyone chucking out that line completely undermines themselves in trying to convince me one way or t'other because it tells me they're either not looking at it dispassionately or don't understand literally the first thing about economics/government finances. Which for me, makes me wonder what else they're saying is poorly sourced/understood.

Because it's the one thing the Tories hang their hat on, apparent fiscal responsibility. There are options to dealing with debt, and they chose austerity. Not increasing tax receipts or promoting growth, but cuts to vital and essential services.
Debt needs to be dealt with by increasing growth, productivity, tax receipts and cuts, if you consider servicing the debt to be so vital. But just like a mortgage, sensible debt can be managed properly. The conservatives have failed to realistically challenge the one thing that is central to their core support. Their chosen method of dealing with this has utterly failed, yet still they persist.
Now, with Brexit, it almost doesn't matter who gets in, because the economy is going to take a pounding, and tweaks here and there are not going to cut it. The conservatives know this, they have made a huge blunder with Brexit, and are looking for someone else to take the blame and try and sort it out. How else can we explain their utterly terrible campaign?
I mentioned before that I think the Tories have self sabotaged in order to get out of taking the heat. I'll be voting Labour, but tbh if the conservatives pull this off and get in which I still think they will, I won't be devastated, they will have to take complete ownership for the coming problems.

Besides, if your only objection to voting against the Tories, is the use of one phrase concerning debt, rather than all the myriad other serious issues, then perhaps your mind is already made up?

Sigh....


You can't spend more to decrease the debt when the debt was that high.

If we were down a few hundred million a year we could have probably done it. But not with the levels of debt Blair and Brown left us.

It's my biggest gripe with Labour at the moment, they are promising all these things and we don't have the money to pay for it.

And no, increasing tax on the top earners won't help, they'll just move money abroad like they always do.

I can't be the only person that keeps on hearing the phrase, "lives in country X for 6 months of the year for tax purposes" when it comes to various local high earners (eg business owners).

 r_squared wrote:

Because it's the one thing the Tories hang their hat on, apparent fiscal responsibility. There are options to dealing with debt, and they chose austerity. Not increasing tax receipts or promoting growth, but cuts to vital and essential services.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you here, but you -seem- to be saying that the logical way of completely eliminating the national debt was to somehow borrow lots more to invest in growth projects and hope that it would generate enough in tax receipts to pay for:-

1) the additional debt caused from this money borrowed and the resulting interest,
2) the entire operating deficit of the government (so that they can stop borrowing), and
3) a little bit more on the top to put a dent in the national debt.

What sorts of projects do you think could be invested in which bring in those (hundreds of billions) of additional tax revenue? What's more, it would have to do it within a year or two as well, or we'd be in a position whereby the National Debt would still have gone up, and you'd still be able to say the same thing about the Tories.

Their chosen method of dealing with this has utterly failed, yet still they persist.

I don't think it's 'failed', per se. They've brought expenditure down, which means less is being borrowed. Whether it succeeded is a different question, and whether it was a good idea more holistically a third one altogether, but that's because economics doesn't tend to result in zero sum 'success/failure' stories.

Besides, if your only objection to voting against the Tories, is the use of one phrase concerning debt, rather than all the myriad other serious issues, then perhaps your mind is already made up?

Errr....'only'? Mate, I picked out one thing you said, because I've been seeing it a lot, and that one thing specifically irritates me as a seeming absurdity. Like I said, unless you're inclined towards cuts three times as harsh or a vast tax hike, the national debt was mathematically guaranteed to increase for reasons which had little to do with the Tories. There are so many rocks sitting there in a pile to lob at the Tories, it just baffles me that people feel the need to go and make fake ones.

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
increased the debt,

As a complete aside from anything else you were saying there r_squared, I really, really , really do not get why people keep holding this against the Tories. It was mathematically inevitable. Practically every single government bar John Major's one at the end has run a deficit, and the operational deficit was so high after Brown left power that Cameron/May couldn't have eliminated it without effectively killing the economy for a decade through cuts so vicious there'd have been riots.

Yet I keep seeing it everywhere. 'You can't trust the Tories, they've raised the national debt!' 'They say Labour is bad? What a joke! Look at how much more debt has accumulated under the Tories'. etcetc

I keep seeing it as a soundbyte, and every time I do, I just look at it and go, 'Well yeah. But what was the alternative?' And funnily enough, not one person beating the Tories with that (somewhat imaginary) stick has turned to me and said that taxes should have been vastly increased or much more heavy cuts made.

I get your frustration at the Tories r_squared, but speaking as a still undecided voter? Anyone chucking out that line completely undermines themselves in trying to convince me one way or t'other because it tells me they're either not looking at it dispassionately or don't understand literally the first thing about economics/government finances. Which for me, makes me wonder what else they're saying is poorly sourced/understood.

Wow, I'm not the only one who's noticed this!

I mean, not liking austerity is one thing, but not liking austerity and protesting that debt is still too high is just counter intuitive. Getting the deficit down was the goal, and it has mostly worked. Of course not without cost.

Ah goody, more endless roundabout circling on debt & deficit. Pointing out Tory hypocrisy on their "fiscally responsible" narrative is perhaps satisfying, but you're still holding the debate on their terms.




That is important. That is the narrative that needs to be front and centre: if you vote Tory, you are an accessory to murder. No wiggling, no weaselling; you are willingly endorsing policies that are provably killing the sick & disabled. If you try and claim you support other Tory policies but not those ones, you are saying our lives are a price worth paying for those other policies. I don't even think I could come up with words to describe my feelings for informed Tory voters these days if I were posting somewhere like 4Chan, nevermind within the rules of this forum.

Stop allowing Tories to steer the debate into fiscal minutiae and demand they face up to the practical, murderous impact of the policies they have enacted, are enacting, and intend to enact.

I would just like to point out, that telling people that they are scum for voting a certain way is exactly how you cause even bigger rifts between people and cause them to turn even more extreme.

So don't do it, seriously. It's not how you win over potential voters.

 welshhoppo wrote:
I would just like to point out, that telling people that they are scum for voting a certain way is exactly how you cause even bigger rifts between people and cause them to turn even more extreme.

So don't do it, seriously. It's not how you win over potential voters.

Indeed, thats one of the reasons why Trump won.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I would just like to point out, that telling people that they are scum for voting a certain way is exactly how you cause even bigger rifts between people and cause them to turn even more extreme.

So don't do it, seriously. It's not how you win over potential voters.

Indeed, thats one of the reasons why Trump won.

People keep saying this...while ignoring that he and his supporters were and have been doing the exact same thing all along, except without a policy basis upon which to make such a judgement

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I would just like to point out, that telling people that they are scum for voting a certain way is exactly how you cause even bigger rifts between people and cause them to turn even more extreme.

So don't do it, seriously. It's not how you win over potential voters.

Indeed, thats one of the reasons why Trump won.

People keep saying this...while ignoring that he and his supporters were and have been doing the exact same thing all along, except without a policy basis upon which to make such a judgement

I'd drop this line of discussion as US politics ist verboten.

May does appear to be campaigning like someone who is only running for class president because her mom said she has to.

 r_squared wrote:

I'd just like to point out, as a member of the military for nearly 20 years, that we do currently have armed guards at nearly every military base in the country and have done so for years. Our Rules of engagement are very, very strict, and are amended regularly to fit current UK law. However, it is made very clear to us that the use of lethal force is only to be deployed as a very last resort and that we are compelled to use the minimum force necessary, whether that's a shout, or physical restraint. We are also not immune from prosecution, and that we will be held fully accountable for our actions.

That's fine. But you still don't want your military to be your police force. That introduces a conflict of interest and raises the possibility (I'm not saying it is now) that the military can come to view the populace as the 'enemy' at times of extreme stress. There's a reason the entities are kept separate. For example you've already pointed out one notable difference. Using lethal force is at the discretion of the soldier (with potential consequences if they get it wrong); for the police it lies with the commanding officer and only they can give the authorisation to use lethal force.

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

Because it's the one thing the Tories hang their hat on, apparent fiscal responsibility. There are options to dealing with debt, and they chose austerity. Not increasing tax receipts or promoting growth, but cuts to vital and essential services.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you here, but you -seem- to be saying that the logical way of completely eliminating the national debt was to somehow borrow lots more to invest in growth projects and hope that it would generate enough in tax receipts to pay for:-

1) the additional debt caused from this money borrowed and the resulting interest,
2) the entire operating deficit of the government (so that they can stop borrowing), and
3) a little bit more on the top to put a dent in the national debt.

What sorts of projects do you think could be invested in which bring in those (hundreds of billions) of additional tax revenue? What's more, it would have to do it within a year or two as well, or we'd be in a position whereby the National Debt would still have gone up, and you'd still be able to say the same thing about the Tories.

The fact that they only tried cuts? They also cut taxes,

https://fullfact.org/economy/have-conservatives-brought-70-billion-worth-tax-cuts/

Almost guaranteeing that the defect will continue to rise. What exactly are they trying to do here? Because to many it would seem they are robbing the poor, to feed the rich.
If they really wanted to bring down the debt, they certainly could have done, but their ideology of tax cuts scuppered any chance.

 Ketara wrote:

Their chosen method of dealing with this has utterly failed, yet still they persist.

I don't think it's 'failed', per se. They've brought expenditure down, which means less is being borrowed. Whether it succeeded is a different question, and whether it was a good idea more holistically a third one altogether, but that's because economics doesn't tend to result in zero sum 'success/failure' stories.

They've brought expenditure down, but also reduced the ability to pay of the outstanding debt because they have willingly reduced the government's income. Most conservative friends and colleagues I know argue that handling the debt and fiscal responsibility is why they vote conservative.

 Ketara wrote:

Besides, if your only objection to voting against the Tories, is the use of one phrase concerning debt, rather than all the myriad other serious issues, then perhaps your mind is already made up?

Errr....'only'? Mate, I picked out one thing you said, because I've been seeing it a lot, and that one thing specifically irritates me as a seeming absurdity. Like I said, unless you're inclined towards cuts three times as harsh or a vast tax hike, the national debt was mathematically guaranteed to increase for reasons which had little to do with the Tories. There are so many rocks sitting there in a pile to lob at the Tories, it just baffles me that people feel the need to go and make fake ones.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Sigh....

You can't spend more to decrease the debt when the debt was that high.

If we were down a few hundred million a year we could have probably done it. But not with the levels of debt Blair and Brown left us.

it would be fairer to state that it was the debt the banks left us with. *Before* the financial collapse the level of debt under Blair and Brown was less (slightly) than what they were given by the Tories left Labour to deal with. For all intents and purposes it was the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#/media/File:UK_Debt_to_GDP_ratio.png

The real debt and interest came from bailing out the banks and the UKs approach at the time was seen as generally positive noting for example a Novel prize winner for economics (Paul Krugman) stated that "Mr Brown and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer have defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up."; and "Luckily for the world economy,... Gordon Brown and his officials are making sense,... And they may have shown us the way through this crisis." It did leave us with a long term debt issue though and how that was recovered.

The question is whether the Tories would have done anything differently and the answer to this is probably not. The alternative would have been to let the banks fail just like any other business which although we wouldn't have a debt mountain would have likely generated other issues (for example what would have happened to mortgages if the creditors came calling?). However the debt because of the banking collapse as an issue for not voting Labour is rather questionable given what other alternatives there were.

The only real flaw was the deregulation of the banking checks but that was an international issue not just UK based (and the fear that they would leave if we didn't keep up deregulating) and ignoring growing warning signs that we were heading for a cliff edge (high levels of populace debt, low capital mortgages, housing market overheating). We've not really learnt much here though because the same things are happening again.

The real question now is how you support removing the debt. As it stands the lowest 1% pay 40%ish of their income of taxes and the highest earners 30% of their income and this is an effect of Tory policy. In addition public services, NHS, social care, state education that the poorest rely on more are being ever further squeezed by Tory cuts whilst the wealthiest and the banks continue to prosper (or most of them anyway). Take the example of Lloyds, we took over state ownership but sold the stake only recovering the initial debt and not the interest it accrued. The state could easily have held onto it for longer and taken the share of profits to pay off some of the interest. Instead the UK plc effectively took over a debt ridden bank, made it 'safe' and then sold it back onto the same people (generically) at the same cost. Effectively then the banking sector got to wipe the slate clean but without paying the consequences of previous mismanagement (which is now held by the UK populace). Again the Tories effectively transferred business debt to the UK populace.

These sort of practices are not likely to change with Tories still in charge. Despite everything Corbyn does seem interested in rebalancing society (although his it is by far too left in my view) and perhaps if he stays with his aims we could end up there. It would not be unreasonable for example that the poorest 1% only pay 30% of their income in taxes and the wealthiest 40%. Overall the tax income would be about the same but it does take some of the pressure of the poorest and most struggling in society and with a bit of tweaking may be even be able to fund public services better. Yes the wealthy (i.e. £30K + group would have to pay more tax) but is that necessarily a bad thing?)

 Yodhrin wrote:

That is important. That is the narrative that needs to be front and centre: if you vote Tory, you are an accessory to murder.

If you voted Labour, you're also an accessory to murder by that logic, considering we went to war in two different countries with a reasonably small pretext under their rule. Or do soldiers and foreign civilians not count?

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems went into coalition when the first round of cuts started. So that must mean voting for them makes you an accessory to murder too, right? I'm essentially left voting Green as the only 'ethical' choice thinking like that. It's a terrible line of reasoning, and frankly? Every government usually kills people somewhere along the line, be it in war, policies, suicides from people locked up in jail, choosing not to fund a foreign aid policy that could help feed the poor in other countries, and so on.

You kind of have to accept that when you go to the polling booth, and take a more holistic view. The minute you start spitting venom and labelling the other side 'murderers' in anything that doesn't involve them literally shooting people, is the minute most people stop listening to your reason as to why they should vote a certain way.

For the record, Tory cuts on DSA are one of the main reasons I'm leery of them right now. But when I cast my vote, I need to be doing what I think is best for the country in many regards, not best for a specific group of people.

 r_squared wrote:

The fact that they only tried cuts? They also cut taxes,

https://fullfact.org/economy/have-conservatives-brought-70-billion-worth-tax-cuts/

Almost guaranteeing that the defect will continue to rise. What exactly are they trying to do here? Because to many it would seem they are robbing the poor, to feed the rich.
If they really wanted to bring down the debt, they certainly could have done, but their ideology of tax cuts scuppered any chance.

That was an interesting link. But....did you read it? Because it actually contradicts the figure. It points out that whilst the figures are technically accurate, they omit a lot of other very relevant information. So for example:-

As an illustration, if you add up the estimated cost in 2021/22 of every cut to the main and small profits corporation tax rates since 2010, as Labour does, you get a £13 billion forfeit that year.

If you add in all the other changes to corporation tax you get a much smaller revenue reduction of around £0.6 billion.

So......yeah. With that in mind, are you now claiming that the national operating deficit would have been eliminated if they hadn't made those tax changes? Even given that your own link points out that the figures for that claim are misleading? I'll be honest, I'm having trouble nailing down precisely what your counterargument is here that means slamming the Tories over the fact the national debt increasing is justified. It seems to keep changing.

They've brought expenditure down, but also reduced the ability to pay of the outstanding debt because they have willingly reduced the government's income. Most conservative friends and colleagues I know argue that handling the debt and fiscal responsibility is why they vote conservative.

I suppose you have to look at these things in comparison to the alternatives. The Tories may well note be amazing at economics, but if the opposition are terrible (and looking at New Labour and Harold Wilson before them, there seems to be quite some justification for that), then 'mediocre' is still better than 'bad'.

There's no fake rocks in my pile. The conservatives have failed on the economy,

Did they? Inflation is under control. Interest rates aren't exactly skyrocketing.The pound is still quite valuable on the international exchange, businesses are still opening, growth is happening. Far as I can see, looking out the window, the economy is holding together reasonably well at the moment. Considering we're not even in recession, precisely what measure are you using to declare their 'failure'? Is there some metric? How much better does the economy need to be doing to not count as a 'failure' to you?