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Mhairi Black is definitely a career politician. And is probably quite naive to the ways of the world.


Then again, the majority of them are. Regular people don't have the time or money to pursue a career in politics unless they get lucky.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Mhairi Black is definitely a career politician. And is probably quite naive to the ways of the world.


Then again, the majority of them are. Regular people don't have the time or money to pursue a career in politics unless they get lucky.

I might be judging her too harshly but with her all I see is a permanent student activist.

Well too be fair. When starting a new job you often use skills you gained from previous experience.


Seeing as that is the only experience she has, it is to be expected.

I find her quite refreshing in politics because she's the polar opposite of most of parliament. Admittedly she only seems to talk about how those on the poverty line are being shafted, but that's thd group that most needs the voice and seems to be roundly ignored my her millionaire opposition, most of whom i suspect have never met anyone at a food bank.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Mhairi Black is definitely a career politician. And is probably quite naive to the ways of the world.


Then again, the majority of them are. Regular people don't have the time or money to pursue a career in politics unless they get lucky.

Naivety is not necessarily a bad thing, as that means you are looking at the world with fresh eyes. A lot of things continue to happen in a certain way because "that's how we've also done it" and no one ever questions it. Whereas those that are 'naïve' are more likely to question such approaches which can result in moments of inspiration and actually make things better especially if they are willing to look at the actual evidence. What is bad is a mix of arrogance and naivety because that results in someone believing that something can be made better using only their ideas when in fact they don't really know what they are talking about. However this is not limited to the younger generation by any stretch of the imagination...

As for the issues with getting a career in politics, it is a problem especially when you don't align with one of the major parties. For example there is a real lack of decent local councillors at the moment, but those people that want change generally don't agree with the incumbents. Take Leicestershire for example it is massively Tory orientated but if you are not a supporter of the Tories then there is hardly any point trying to become a councillor as your chance of actually getting in is very close to zero. It's the problem with the FPTP system.


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Herzlos wrote:
I find her quite refreshing in politics because she's the polar opposite of most of parliament. Admittedly she only seems to talk about how those on the poverty line are being shafted, but that's thd group that most needs the voice and seems to be roundly ignored my her millionaire opposition, most of whom i suspect have never met anyone at a food bank.

I'm sure there are plenty in the Tory party think that those people using Food banks are just lazy good for nothings and just sponging off the system and therefore not worth their time!

On an aside I see Corbyn has come out and said he is going to "Finish the job" so it's quote competition time again, anyone know what he wants to finish? I'm thinking he wants to finish the job of disbanding the Labour Party?

 Whirlwind wrote:


On an aside I see Corbyn has come out and said he is going to "Finish the job" so it's quote competition time again, anyone know what he wants to finish? I'm thinking he wants to finish the job of disbanding the Labour Party?

Thats unfair, he'll never see that through.

Jeremy Corbyn is the least of Labour's problems...speaking for myself, the reason why I'm never going to vote Labour in the foreseeable future is not because of Corbyn, but because of Labour itself. Voters have long memories, they remember the days of New Labour, and see many of the same names from those days still active in the party. Granted, Corbyn has done little to change that, but then again theres little he can do.

In fact, whilst I'll never vote for the man himself, he is paradoxically making me more likely to vote for Labour in the (distant) future. From what I see, he's trying to reform the party by dragging it to the Left, taking it way from the neo-Liberal / centre-right / however-the-feth-you-want-to-describe-it adomination that was New Labour. That'll give us a real choice, because it'll distinguish labour from the Conservatives once gain. Purging Labour of its metropolitan New Labour wing of Blairites can only be a good thing.

The party is dying, and has been for a long time, and its not Corbyn's fault. Getting rid of him will not be a silver bullet to solve the party's declining support.

How to help Labour get back to power, in a totally non-legal manner.

Burn down the offices of the Daily Heil, Express and The Scum.

I'm sick of them lying through their teeth, and getting away with it because they have parliament in their pocket.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How to help Labour get back to power, in a totally non-legal manner.

Burn down the offices of the Daily Heil, Express and The Scum.

I'm sick of them lying through their teeth, and getting away with it because they have parliament in their pocket.

Oh sure, blame the papers, pass the buck, refuse to do any sort of introspection and soul searching. Its got absolutely nothing to do with Labour itself being an awful useless party that's lost touch with the working class, its all somebody else's fault.

When the papers routinely misrepresnt or outright lie about the Party's leader, and pass the blame for successive failure of governance onto foreigners/migrants/gays/Jews/blacks/Muslims (delete to be time era accurate) you bet your arse they're squarely to blame.

Housing is shafted in this country because social stock was sold off on the cheap, and not replaced.

Large areas of the country struggle economically because their industries were outsourced, and no attempt was made to help them.

There's no one party to blame for that of course. But when the right wing gutter press constantly peddle misinformation and lies, what chance do we have?

Like I said...passing the buck.

Too many new labour still in the party. Under New Labour my family, and many others, became worse off. Public sector pay stalled, taxes went up, student loans grew considerably, national industries continued to dry up. Loans and housing costs spiralled out of control and they did nothing. Now children have to leave their home towns because they can't afford a house. Social mobility is in reverse, Millenials are worse off with poorer and less stable futures than their parents had at the same age.. Really, New Labour have done little for their core voters who are now struggling, and Corbyn just doesn't have the clout or the support to make a difference, to turn back decades of dissatisfaction.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Like I said...passing the buck.

So who do you feel is to blame for the pisspoor state of our country?

A country where I can earn over the national average on my own, yet owning a home remains a pipe dream?

Where many of my colleagues have a massive student loan as an albatross round their neck, imposed by a generation who very much enjoyed free university.

Where the cost of public transport has spiralled upwards, depsite privatisation being promised as a way to better services?

Or maybe you actually believe it's that bloke who just came over from Poland?

Wow, thats a lot of projection there.

The general election is 3 years away. Corbyn has been in post for 17 months, and has been continually undermined by the self-serving Blairites in the party. Labour was smashed in 2015 for offering 'Tory Lite', and Corbyn is presenting a genuine alternative; he just needs a chance to get his message across.

Also, when did British voters become so cynical? This isn't a mythical society that Corbyn is trying to introduce, it's one that works extremely effectively in Scandinavian countries [who consider Corbyn to be a moderate]. Unfortunately it's much easier to point the finger at the Polish bloke next door than it is to ask the electorate to put their hands in their own pocket. Politicians have always known that, it's just that they used to have some integrity. We are in the era of regressive, gutter politics, and Corbyn is a breath of fresh air.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Too many new labour still in the party. Under New Labour my family, and many others, became worse off. Public sector pay stalled, taxes went up, student loans grew considerably, national industries continued to dry up. Loans and housing costs spiralled out of control and they did nothing. Now children have to leave their home towns because they can't afford a house. Social mobility is in reverse, Millenials are worse off with poorer and less stable futures than their parents had at the same age.. Really, New Labour have done little for their core voters who are now struggling, and Corbyn just doesn't have the clout or the support to make a difference, to turn back decades of dissatisfaction.

I won't even consider voting Labour until the old guard of New Labour have been purged. And to that end, I'm cheering Corbyn on. He's (somewhat incompetently) trying to reform the Labour party, drag it to the Left and re-connect with the working class.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Like I said...passing the buck.

So who do you feel is to blame for the pisspoor state of our country?

Persistent poor governance on the part of both the Tory and Labour parties going back decades. The problems we're suffering from today are cross generational, they've been decades in the making and cannot be laid "squarely" at the feet of any one party or "right wing gutter press newspaper". Attempting to do so is simply mis-guided flailing around looking for a convenient scape goat.

Alas, things aren't that simple.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


So who do you feel is to blame for the pisspoor state of our country?

Thatcher.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


So who do you feel is to blame for the pisspoor state of our country?

Thatcher.

Callaghan.
Thatcher,
Major.
Blair.
Brown.
Cameron.

And soon we can May to that list, no doubt.

Not just Thatcher. She did horrendous damage - but nobody has tried to rectify it.

Instead, the areas where industry was lost are now pointed at as 'dole scum', despite that there's no bloody work there worth a damn.

And the very fethers who voted for those policies, and did so repeatedly, now dare to call my generation 'entitled' and 'spoiled'.

Am. I. feth.

I do a lot better than most of my friends - and a good chunk of my current lifestyle is down to luck, then hard graft after.

My rent is £775 a month. My commute to work is £220 a month. My lekky, gas and water are all expensive, an average combined monthly cost of £100 - and I'm not wasteful.

How am I meant to save up a deposit for a place of my own with bills like that? And for clarity, I don't consider my wage low or unfair. But when I can struggle to make ends meet, what chance do people on minimum wage have?

For the most part, to avoid minimum wage you need a degree. Which now entails a minimum £27,000 debt at the end.

In short? We. Got. Shafted. Big time. And now the utter sociopaths in power continue to funnel all money upwards. Despite it all being in the name of austerity, the Tories have massively increased our borrowing.

Look. Just fething look at it



And that gak gets blamed on migrants. On the poor. On the disabled. Anyone but the mental cases running our country and NHS into the ground. Bankers wrecked the global economy. They get bail outs, tax cuts etc. They sell off State owned assets at rock bottom prices to people already stupidly wealthy, all the time telling us it's necessary. They're going to balance the books. The pain is worth it.

Is it bollocks as like. It's downright fraud, all supported by the gutter press.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


In short? We. Got. Shafted. Big time. And now the utter sociopaths in power continue to funnel all money upwards. Despite it all being in the name of austerity, the Tories have massively increased our borrowing.

Look. Just fething look at it

So....what you're saying is that you would have supported Government cuts about ten times as harsh in the first few years of the coalition government to undo Labour spending levels completely and put us into surplus? That's a pretty bold thing. I don't think I've heard anyone say that before.

Because government borrowing has been declining year on year since 2010. The cumulative national debt is going higher and higher naturally, but that's because we're still borrowing. We're just borrowing less each year. That's why the gap between 2008 and 2010 in your graph is much larger than the gap between 2014 & 2016.

I'll just leave this here...

http://visual.ons.gov.uk/welfare-spending/

42% of welfare spending, £108 Bn on silver voters. Triple lock is still a thing, yet unemployment benefits, which totals £3 Bn or 1% of the budget, are constantly attacked.

Now, those pensioners are just drawing the benefit they're entitled to after a lifetime of work, but in reality, the money they paid in was spent decades ago. The current working age population covers that, whilst being encouraged to provide a pension for themselves, after the Govt got rid of work place pensions, before realising what an astronomically stupid idea that was and are trying to bring them back.

Housing benefit and income support benefit make up £71 Bn or 27% of the budget and are effective private landlord and business subsidies.

The benefits that are destroying the system and costing us a fortune are the ones that are driven by political ideology. Unhappy about that? Challenge your MP.

Mad Doc, I'm in a very similar boat. I'm a lecturer and take home nearly 2 grand a month, about half of which goes in rent and household bills before I even think about running a car or buying food, which basically takes away most of the rest...

Yes, I could save £100 or even £200 a month if frugal. But to buy a house round here, even with my partner who earns almost as much as I do, I'd need £100k deposit (£450K+ for a 3-bed terrace). Let's assume we each saved £200 a month (best case scenario). In a bit more than 20 years we could afford to buy a house. By which time we'd both be nearly 70 and could no longer get a mortgage anyway. So in fact we can't ever afford to buy in the SE. I'm better off spending £100 a month on minis and a bit less than £100 on LARPing.


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Oh, and the generation that now thinks of us as "entitled" -- my Dad's? He and my Mum bought a house for £4K half a century ago. By the time he was my age (47) he was looking forward to early retirement (on a final salary-based pension) and paying off the last of his mortgage within a few years. There's just no comparison. And it's worse for younger people, if anything.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Voters have long memories

If that is true, why are the Conservatives in power? Seems to me it is more likely that voters have very short memories, hence the Conservatives being able to trot out rubbish like them being better with the economy.

Much the same as me.

I'm in Tunbridge Wells, and again I count myself lucky. My flat is stupidly cheap for the area, especially for a two bedroom. Private road, off street parking - most people don't even know the street is here, because bizarrely it's through a council car park. Flat next door, which is one bedroom is asking £1k a month. Two bedroom in the next building? £1250.

My commute is the price it is because there's a reliable coach service, which picks me up not far from my flat, and does as near a door to door service as a commuter could wish for. Without them? £421 per month for the cheapest possible annual season ticket.

So were it not for luck of looking at the right time, I'd be considerably less well off than I am.

There's no way at all I can afford to buy in Tunbridge Wells. Not until my parents have died and inheritance comes around (house in the borders, flat in Edinburgh, plus whatever cash may or may not be floating around).

It's a ludicrous state of affairs. And as I often see historical mortgage applications in my line of work, it really infuriates me to see how cheap people born a mere ten years before me could get a house.

How my God daughter is going to survive out there I don't know

Sadly, the issue with rising house prices is more that foreigners and foreign companies wish to invest in it as one of the most stable markets to get a return from in the world. The only way to defuse that is to either embark on mass house building, or start restricting foreign investment.

The first requires truly tremendous sums of cash (because it would require many compulsory purchase orders and large scale construction), and would be unpopular with anyone who owns a house or a mortgage on one (as it would devalue their investment). The latter would be economic suicide.

I see no easy solution, sadly.

 Ketara wrote:
Sadly, the issue with rising house prices is more that foreigners and foreign companies wish to invest in it as one of the most stable markets to get a return from in the world. The only way to defuse that is to either embark on mass house building, or start restricting foreign investment.

The first requires truly tremendous sums of cash (because it would require many compulsory purchase orders and large scale construction), and would be unpopular with anyone who owns a house or a mortgage on one (as it would devalue their investment). The latter would be economic suicide.

I see no easy solution, sadly.

"But but but thats racist!" [/sarcasm]

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Voters have long memories

If that is true, why are the Conservatives in power? Seems to me it is more likely that voters have very short memories, hence the Conservatives being able to trot out rubbish like them being better with the economy.

On reflection, the conservatives, and new labour, have been at the forefront of some of the biggest economic changes in the last 50 years. De-nationalisation of services, de-regularisation of banks, selling off national housing stock, destruction of the unions, and finally Brexit.
People know this, and vote for it, because that's what they want. If you want to change that, then you have to convince others that this way of thinking is destructive and costly.
They won't do anything until it starts to impact them directly, which is why we have to let Brexit run its course. People need to see exactly why they are wrong, you can't tell them , because they're not listening.

The EU was a major factor in the UK growth and prosperity, outside of it, we will be poorer. It's a fact, and it will happen. But until people see it for themselves, and can no longer blame it on people "talking the UK down", we're stuck.


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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Sadly, the issue with rising house prices is more that foreigners and foreign companies wish to invest in it as one of the most stable markets to get a return from in the world. The only way to defuse that is to either embark on mass house building, or start restricting foreign investment.

The first requires truly tremendous sums of cash (because it would require many compulsory purchase orders and large scale construction), and would be unpopular with anyone who owns a house or a mortgage on one (as it would devalue their investment). The latter would be economic suicide.

I see no easy solution, sadly.

"But but but thats racist!" [/sarcasm]

Yeah, thanks for your pithy contribution.

The Chinese have bought a large amount of property in London, as it's considered to be a bargain in comparison to home. https://www.ft.com/content/fc1b3e6c-a334-11e6-8b69-02899e8bd9d1
It's also straight investment, with no intent to let or live in the properties. If they leave due to unfavourable economic circumstances, there would be sudden glut of properties available in London, but considering the demand, prices would probably still be quite high. Our economy is tightly linked to debt and mortgages unfortunately, and it'll be interesting to see what will happen when interest rates start climbing to deal with inflation. I remember mortgage interest rate of %15, that was not pleasant, and would be catastrophic now, considering the disproportionate salary to house value ratio that now exists.

The only way forward is affordable, council/ housing association owned rental properties and a sea change in attitude of the population to accept that renting is perfectly acceptable once again. I was brought up in rented council housing, as was virtually everyone in the 70s and 80s, and it wasn't until Thatcher pushed home ownership as the ideal that this new ideology took over.

There may be additional mortgage woes to come.

The Baby Boomers who invested in property to fund their retirements? The clock is ticking, and sadly it won't be long until we see mortality rates jump in the UK, as that generation shuffle off this mortal coil.

And all that property, that's part of the estate. So unless Inheritance Tax receives a serious review, that's a lot of estates that'll need to be broken up and sold off to pay the tax man.

And seeing as it seems one bedroom places or bedsits are the most profitable (subdivision), it's the entry end of the market that's likely to see a resurgence of availability.

Depending on timing, that alone could burst the housing bubble.

It's not a foregone conclusion, but definitely one to keep your eye on,

There's always the alternative solution, which is to move out of London. Outside of the M25, and a few overheated areas (Kent, Birmingham, Bristol, etc) property prices go through the floor. You can pick up a two bedroom around Durham for £50,000, no problem. And that's not even the cheapest.

Prices in Northern Ireland are pretty low too. There's a three bedroom terrace in my area going for a mere £75000, whilst 4-6 bedroom almost mansions in the exclusive Malone area go for £200000 to £500000. You can buy a decent suburban semi for around £100000.