So, what do we reckon life will be like under the iron clog and despotic rule of Andy Burnham? The seventh PM in only ten years.

How long will he last?

same as under Kier i would think?   same labour....

1 minute ago, robtheplod said:

same as under Kier i would think?   same labour....

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. 

 

But with a Lancashire accent. 

1 hour ago, robtheplod said:

same as under Kier i would think?   same labour....

Possibly even worse though....

1 hour ago, Justin Smith said:

Possibly even worse though....

I think andy 'the guy' will be more relatable than robotic keir ever could be, but the problem may be he'll probably be more extreme lefty than Kier with policies.... I doubt he'll last long, but thats how this country works now...  

3 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

I think andy 'the guy' will be more relatable than robotic keir ever could be, but the problem may be he'll probably be more extreme lefty than Kier with policies.... I doubt he'll last long, but thats how this country works now...  

You're right. We need more privatisation, and the NHS will benefit from being paid for by sick people who can afford it. Plus, we need more zero hours contracts and less employee rights, longer hours and worse conditions.  More petrol cars, going faster. More rents. More contracts for donors. More for billionaires. Less brown people, and they should live in really nasty blocks of flats. More flags. Less police, less doctors, less teachers, less of anyone paid by the state. Less care workers, and more profits for care home owners. More tax breaks for rich people. 

More tax havens. 

4 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

So, what do we reckon life will be like under the iron clog and despotic rule of Andy Burnham? The seventh PM in only ten years.

How long will he last?

Depends.  

Have the media had time to find any skeletons in his closet or are there still some to find?

Can he find more than one person to join his administrative circle who isn't a ticking time bomb?

Can he avoid alienating Trump?

Can he get us into a distracting war?

Will he encounter Covid Mk II?

Has he ever said anything contrary to Jewish interests?

Can he win the World Cup?

Can he reduce the cost of the Welfare State and still keep everybody onside?

Can he move the Government to Manchester?

Can he actually make any changes that people notice?  ie good ones?

31 minutes ago, Tigerr said:

Less brown people, and they should live in really nasty blocks of flats.

Careful there. That could be one of those socialist policies, if the flats are built and run by councils. Better is if they are built by councils, then sold off cheap to private equity outfits, who can charge "market" rents. That way, the remaining brown people can properly contribute the bulk of their wages to the segment of society that most deserves them. 

17 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Depends.  

Have the media had time to find any skeletons in his closet or are there still some to find?

Can he find more than one person to join his administrative circle who isn't a ticking time bomb?

Can he avoid alienating Trump?

Can he get us into a distracting war?

Will he encounter Covid Mk II?

Has he ever said anything contrary to Jewish interests?

Can he win the World Cup?

Can he reduce the cost of the Welfare State and still keep everybody onside?

Can he move the Government to Manchester?

Can he actually make any changes that people notice?  ie good ones?

I keep hearing that he didnt exactly help with the grooming gangs enquiry... not sure if this amounts to anything concrete though?

37 minutes ago, Tigerr said:

Less brown people

I find this statement very offensive and triggering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Fewer” is grammatically correct here. 😉

Edited June 22Jun 22 by phantom_iv

46 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

I think andy 'the guy' will be more relatable than robotic keir ever could be, but the problem may be he'll probably be more extreme lefty than Kier with policies.... I doubt he'll last long, but thats how this country works now...  

In what way was Keir lefty, let alone extreme lefty? What lefty policies has Keir put through in his two years? 

4 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

In what way was Keir lefty, let alone extreme lefty? What lefty policies has Keir put through in his two years? 

supporting the massive benefits bill and Burnham wanting to re-nationalise (or he did a while ago but he keeps changing).....

Edited June 22Jun 22 by robtheplod

28 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Depends.  

Have the media had time to find any skeletons in his closet or are there still some to find?

Can he find more than one person to join his administrative circle who isn't a ticking time bomb?

Can he avoid alienating Trump?

Can he get us into a distracting war?

Will he encounter Covid Mk II?

Has he ever said anything contrary to Jewish interests?

Can he win the World Cup?

Can he reduce the cost of the Welfare State and still keep everybody onside?

Can he move the Government to Manchester?

Can he actually make any changes that people notice?  ie good ones?

Lol, move the government to a real city!! Imagine the nappy wetting!!! 

8 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

I find this statement very offensive and triggering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Fewer” is grammatically correct here. 😉

 

I rather think that you had better not watch, read, or attend any performance/book containing satire. In view of his past posts, I found that one rather funny, and a brilliant comment on Tory and Reform policies.

7 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I rather think that you had better not watch, read, or attend any performance/book containing satire. 

I'm fine with satire. Poor grammar though... 😂

1 minute ago, robtheplod said:

I keep hearing that he didnt exactly help with the grooming gangs enquiry... not sure if this amounts to anything concrete though?

This is just one of the fabricated nonsenses put out by the billionaires media and shills. Repeat a lie enough and it emerges exactly as you put it ' I keep hearing xxx'.

Of course you do, people have invested a lot of money to make sure you, and everyone whose algorithms match, keep hearing it too.

In print, broadcast and most critically now on social media. 

Starmer could have come up with the cure to the common cold, and I guarantee you'd only read that he had failed to cure the flu, or let old people die because he didnt invent it sooner. 

Starmer's speech today was good. Confounded your half baked predictions.

He's handing over, and he needs to. He isnt the strong sauce we need, he was just an alternative to the corruption  slogan train wreck, but he never won the media war. He made mistakes, and you'd think a couple of suits and specs from an actual friend, were bigger than £5m/£14m from a dodgy Thai crypto billionaire speculator, if you followed the popular media in the UK. 

He also outlined the achievements of this government, which, given the Tory scorched earth, are not too shabby. It will take a generation to fix the damage done in a generation, by people now with their trotters up in the Cotswolds, counting the money in their BVI tax free accounts.

I can guarantee you will hear nothing about those achievements, and quite probably that's to your liking. I'd be very surprised if you heard it all - or just the snips and commentary you were allowed to hear? 

Burnham is now walking into the billionaires firestorm. they will be spending right now to bring him down, and they have more money than any government to do it with. He wont be allowed to renationalise Water companies and let shareholders face the consequences of their risk. The City wont have it, big money wont have it, and the billionaires wont have it. Which means they will find ways to make sure you wont have Burnham. 

 

29 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

supporting the massive benefits bill and Burnham wanting to re-nationalise (or he did a while ago but he keeps changing).....

Like state pensions? The bulk of the bill. 

 

Here are some other lefty policies I took from a manifesto from the 1960s. Anything like this that Keir has done?. 

Quote

N.E.D.C. and Planning

We have set up the National Economic Development Council, bringing together Government, management and unions in a co-operative venture to improve our economic performance. This has been followed by the establishment of Economic Development Committees for a number of individual industries.

N.E.D.C. gives reality to the democratic concept of planning by partnership. In contemporary politics the argument is not for or against planning. All human activity involves planning. The question is: how is the planning to be done? By consent or by compulsion?

 

Quote

We shall further improve the organisation for promoting civil science by setting up new research councils. An industrial research and development authority will be formed to undertake basic and applied work of importance to industry.

Economic efficiency and increasing leisure have always depended on supplementing human with mechanical effort, and increasingly mechanisation must extend to the control systems which link and co-ordinate the machines. It is an important feature of our policy to encourage the wider spread of automated equipment. The National Research Development Corporation, with extended powers and finance, will be helped to sponsor the application of such new techniques in industry.

Quote

Redundancy and Retraining

The Government is helping industry to plan its manpower requirements ahead so that unnecessary redundancies are avoided. Our new Contracts of Employment Act gives employees for the first time statutory rights to a minimum period of notice. We attach great importance to the wider extension of arrangements whereby redundant workers are compensated by their employers through severance payments.

In the next Parliament we shall reform the unemployment benefit under the national insurance scheme. Men and women with earnings above a minimum level will be able to receive for sonic months a graduated supplement to their flat-rate benefit. Their total benefit will thus be more closely related to their normal standard of living, and those unable to find a new job right away will be protected against a sharp fall in income. Some workers who fall ill may suffer comparable financial hardship, and a similar change will be made in sickness benefit. Our detailed scheme will be put forward when we have completed our discussions with representatives of the interests concerned.

We are at present carrying through in Government training centres a doubling of the facilities for retraining men and women in new skills. In addition, the industrial training boards which are being set up under our new legislation will stimulate industries particularly those that are expanding to provide greatly improved systems of apprenticeship, training and retraining

 

Quote

Regional Development

Our programme of regional development will expand employment prospects, make the maximum use of national resources and spread prosperity more evenly throughout the United Kingdom. In this way, the potentialities of each region can be developed to the utmost and at the same time its characteristics retained.

This programme combines the provision of better communications, up-to-date social services and improved amenities with generous inducements to build new factories, install modern equipment and provide fresh jobs where they are most required. Its object is to make each region a more efficient place to work in and a more attractive place to live in. Our studies for this purpose now cover Wales, Scotland and most of England.

In central Scotland and north-east England we are already carrying out programmes without precedent in conception and scale. Their impact is evident in the renewed activity and growing buoyancy of these areas which are looking, not towards the problems of the past, but to the technological developments of the future. Thus the places which pioneered the first industrial revolution will become full partners in the second.

In south-east England our programme will ensure proper development to meet the needs of the natural growth of population. New cities and towns and urban expansions will be built to provide work and homes away from the capital. Consultations are now being held about the location and size of these developments, which will be carried out without prejudicing growth elsewhere. We are determined to check the drift to the south and to achieve a sound balance over the whole country.

Quote

Industrial Relations

All these measures to protect and expand employment should help reduce industrial disputes. They also highlight the lack of justification in present conditions for many restrictive practices of labour.

The trade unions have a vital responsibility to diminish such handicaps to Britain's competitive strength. We shall continue to seek their co-operation in matters of common interest and to work in partnership with them through N.E.D.C.

Recent decisions in the courts have thrown into promin2nce aspects of the law affecting trade unions and employers' associations. The law has not been reviewed since the beginning of the century, and it will be the subject of an early inquiry.

Britain on the Move

We shall press ahead with improving and reshaping the transport system to fit the needs of a modern Britain.

The first essential is to make the best possible provision for the increase in private motoring which prosperity brings. Since the 1959 election we have carried out a £600m. programme of new road building. During the next five years £1 ~50m will be devoted to this purpose.

On our present plans the first thousand miles of Britain's motorway system will be completed in 1973. In addition ~ shall improve hundreds of miles of trunk roads. A modern system of road signs will be installed, and we shall concentrate on measures to increase safety.

We are putting particular emphasis on reducing traffic congestion in towns. In the longer term, we shall apply the principles of the Buchanan Report to comprehensive campaigns of town replanning. As an immediate step, expenditure on urban roads will be trebled. In London big improvements in traffic flow have resulted from overall management by the Traffic Management Unit: we shall arrange with the other major conurbations for the same methods to be applied by them.

Public Transport

We shall complete the Victoria Underground line, and will encourage the development and use of new techniques for public transport in the towns. In six rural areas pilot schemes are being started to provide better bus services in some cases with financial support from the Government and county councils. fly mid-1965 we hope to extend' such schemes to other parts of the countryside.

Under the Beeching Plan we are producing an economic railway system able to attract suitable traffic off the roads by its own efficiency. A faster and more reliable rail service is increasingly being provided on the busy main lines for passengers and freight, and millions of pounds have already been knocked off the railway losses. We shall not consent to the closure of any service where this will damage economic development or cause undue hardship. Alternative bus services, with facilities for luggage. will be provided where necessary.

Sea and Air

Britain's ports are now entering a new era when great development schemes will be carried through to the benefit of our trade. We have supported our shipowners against foreign interference and passed the Shipping Contracts Act which will protect British interests. We affirm our faith in the future of the shipbuilding industry whose current prospects have been much improved by our credits scheme.

We intend to press ahead with negotiations for the Channel Tunnel so that an early start can be made.

In developing efficient air communications we believe that a combination of public and private enterprise is best. We shall encourage the growth of a network of internal air services and airports to meet local needs.

 

 

 

Sounds like the most extreme lefty, high spending, state control stuff doesn't it. What would the bond market think? It is actually from the 1964 Tory manifesto. 

http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1964/1964-conservative-manifesto.shtml

8 minutes ago, Tigerr said:

He wont be allowed to renationalise Water companies and let shareholders face the consequences of their risk. The City wont have it, big money wont have it, and the billionaires wont have it.

 

Curious about this. Are you suggesting that he'd want to renationalise water companies without compensating shareholders for fair market value of their shares? Surely the consequences of the shareholders' risk is that e.g. Thames Water go bust and their shares are worthless? Or is the "risk" that the government will steal their property without compensation?

 

Tbh allowing TW to go bust and the government / other water companies buying their assets for a pittance isn't the worst thing in the world...

Edited June 22Jun 22 by phantom_iv

23 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

 

Curious about this. Are you suggesting that he'd want to renationalise water companies without compensating shareholders for fair market value of their shares? Surely the consequences of the shareholders' risk is that e.g. Thames Water go bust and their shares are worthless? Or is the "risk" that the government will steal their property without compensation?

 

Tbh allowing TW to go bust and the government / other water companies buying their assets for a pittance isn't the worst thing in the world...

This will be the battleground I think.

Thames Water, and so many others, can not meet its current debt obligations, because management backed by shareholders, decided that they'd run up £billions in debt, to be passed to them as 'dividends' while they ran the other obligation - provision of water and sewage cleaning, into the ground. 

Instead of investing in providing a service, they simply passed huge amounts of money through the company. Capitalism at its finest. 

The consequence, is very obvious in the shit and sanitary products on our beaches, in the rivers and canals. This part is fairly simple. 

If this scandal isn't corporate malfeasance, criminal fraud, then these terms no longer have real meaning do they?

But by any measure, in the spirit of capitalism, these private businesses should be allowed to go under. We, the cstomers, are going to have to pick up the bill for rebuilding the sewage system, but the shareholders should learn that investments badly managed, may mean you lose the deposit. 

The problem with this is of course that the city, accustomed/entitled to private profit and socialised loss, is going to throw a fit. Corrupted capitalism in our faces. 

I agree and disagree - yes, totally let them fail. Private businesses fail all the time. I don't think the city will care all that much as someone else will buy up their assets from the administrators at a bargain price, and continue to make money from our water bills. Thus, capitalists continue to make money, water still flows, etc etc. They're more likely to be upset by forced nationalisation.

 

However, it should be noted that the amount TW & co are allowed to invest into the sewerage system is regulated by OFWAT, who have priorities lower bills over infrastructure investment. Somewhat paradoxically the amount of profits the water companies are allowed to make is tied to how much they invest - thus public outcry at sewage in rivers is actually good for the water companies as there will be a demand for more investment through higher bills and thus more profit.

 

Nationalisation risks returning the water companies to the historic regime of chronic underinvestment which led to the current state of play - which Labour chancellor is going to choose sewage works over benefits / pay rises to union workers/ health spending, which Tory chancellor will raise taxes to fund it? Thought not.

6 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

So, what do we reckon life will be like under the iron clog and despotic rule of Andy Burnham? The seventh PM in only ten years.

How long will he last?

 

We will either see a snap general election to benefit from the current split in the right and to get ahead of grassroots growth in the Greens. Most likely PM Burnham will limp along until the next General Election. A national crisis could displace him:

• Loss of confidence in money markets, meaning Britain can no longer borrow more and resorts to money printing followed by hyper inflation.
• Another Southall level immigrant related atrocity that causes civil unrest to a degree the police loose control and the army is called in.
• Argentina evicts Britain from the Falklands.
• Collapse of the national grid one winter.
• Putin humiliates us.

 

 

Edited June 22Jun 22 by Gybe Ho

15 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

Nationalisation risks returning the water companies to the historic regime of chronic underinvestment which led to the current state of play - which Labour chancellor is going to choose sewage works over benefits / pay rises to union workers/ health spending, which Tory chancellor will raise taxes to fund it? Thought not.

Lets look at investment, shall we? Water and sewerage were taken in to public, usually municipal, ownership in the 19th century, after people became too annoyed about dying of cholera all the time. Councils and government built the huge reservoirs, filling many upland valleys from the mid 19th century, through to the 1980s. Along with the sewage works that sit at the unglamorous end of every town. Since privatisation there has been no new reservoirs built. Not one. 

13 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

Putin humiliates us.

but it will be alright if Trump humiliates us?

1 hour ago, system 4-50 said:

but it will be alright if Trump humiliates us?

 

We survived that, it was just words.

1 hour ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

We survived that, it was just words.

.....combined with starting a totally unnecessary war in the Middle East that has boosted the cost of pretty much everything that we buy, but that doesn't affect us......does it?