Let's Get Political!

[pauld]

Surely, nobody wants renationalisation. Apart from the cost of buying it back, prices have to lower to make it worthwhile for the public as well as investing in future infrastructure.

What happens is that during government investment falls as pressure mounts for that money to be spent elsewhere.

It’s why the railways were major league shit heaps the last time it was nationalised - ditto water.

As opposed to the shining model of efficiency they are now? Where were you during the shitshow of the last couple of years when Grayling stumbled from one disaster to another? The railways are a mess.

Do they say where the cash comes from to cover this expenditure....did I read somewhere borrowing of upto £ 250 billion....??

Yes, the 2017 manifesto was fully costed. You may well have read somewhere about borrowing of £250 bn but that doesn't mean it was true.

[pauld]

Well if they get in at any forthcoming election they will inherit the magic money forest the Tories have recently discovered?

Javid admitted on the radio this morning that he's just blown the "headroom" Philip Hammond had set aside for a no-deal Brexit on pre-election spending. So they're pushing for a no-deal Brexit while spending the money set aside to protect against that (which was already inadequate according to the Bank of England) to boost their election chances. Party before country as always

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Well, I presume you didn’t use the railways much in the70s. They were disgusting, late, overstaffed, on strike and using ancient rolling stock.

[pauld]

Well, I presume you didn’t use the railways much in the70s. They were disgusting, late, overstaffed, on strike and using ancient rolling stock.

I used them every day in the early 80s and frequently in the late 80s/early 90s. They weren't great in terms of cleanliness and condition of the trains, but we never saw the kind of large scale chaos we've seen on some of the Aviva/Virgin/Stagecoach/Southern Rail franchises over the last few years. As you say, the problem with nationalisation is that when there's a squeeze on spending priorities, it hits the raliways; the problem with privatisation has been that the priority is the shareholders not the service and it's still ended up costing the public purse about as much in subsidies etc. That's before the bailing out of failing franchises - always the same pattern with Tory privatisations, they privatise the profits, but socialise the risk

[mystical_goat]

Any halfway competent leader of the opposition would have seen off May and been in power by now.

How?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Sniper’s rifle?

[pauld]

How?

A vote of confidence for one thing. At the moment, it's pointless for the opposition to call a vote of confidence because Corbyn cannot form a govt, he couldn't even command the confidence of his own party, much less draw support from the Lib Dems, Change, rebel Tories etc. In any normal time, a govt can't command a majority and there'd be a vote of confidence to boot them out. Now we can't even do that because the leader of the opposition is too divisive to form a govt so that it would default to the election that Johnson wants. In fact at the moment, Johnson is more likely to call a vote of confidence in himself.

[mystical_goat]

A vote of confidence for one thing.

Not sure there were many moments when May's party would have considered voting against her, she was there to take the hits for them.

[pauld]

Not sure there were many moments when May's party would have considered voting against her, she was there to take the hits for them.

There were plenty of chances, she was hated, not as much as Johnson, but hated. Remember Ken Clarke's amendment was only defeated by 3 votes and her majority even with the DUP was wafer thin. Not to mention the past few days - we could have Johnson out by the weekend if Corbyn was capable of building any kind of bridges. But he can't even build a coalition within his own party. He's a protestor, not a leader

[pauld]

Johnson has delivered another rambling incoherent speech, inter alia saying he'd rather be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Can we have a referendum on  that?

[mystical_goat]

A vote of confidence for one thing. At the moment, it's pointless for the opposition to call a vote of confidence because Corbyn cannot form a govt, he couldn't even command the confidence of his own party, much less draw support from the Lib Dems, Change, rebel Tories etc.

Sure, that's not how Corbyn can get elected with the current makeup of the house. The only way he can obtain any authority is by winning a general election, and it would have to be one that is not about Brexit.

[Flashheart]

This no no-deal brexit bill (that's a mouthful)... it is just for 31st October, or is it in the long term.

If it's the latter then, once the bill has passed, what is stopping the EU from denying any more extensions, forcing us to abandon it altogether?

[RobertT]

Surely, nobody wants renationalisation. Apart from the cost of buying it back, prices have to lower to make it worthwhile for the public as well as investing in future infrastructure.

What happens is that during government investment falls as pressure mounts for that money to be spent elsewhere.

It’s why the railways were major league shit heaps the last time it was nationalised - ditto water.

See, here is where my left fights with my right!

Take Water - has Private Ownership coincided with a period of significant investment in the infrastructure, and improved quality, yes.  Is it responsible - it need not have been.

Thames Water for example (I haven't stayed clued up on current ownership), throughout the late 00's into the 10's would make somewhere between 300m & 400m a year in profit, which was all but guaranteed by fixed pricing and a monopoly position.  Around half of that went to shareholders, and as it was owned by Private Equity, that meant the owners.  You could say, they deserve some skin in the game, which would be fine, but...........


......that was the icing on the cake.  The cake was made through the Capital investments.  No one year of profit alone could fund multi billion pound infrastructure projects so they needed to loan the money.  This was done through an offshore financing vehicle going by roughly the same name (Thames Water), who would charge a bit of interest, as you do.  That company was wholly owned by the same parent Private Equity company, but as it was offshore, it need not pay any tax on those earnings.  The Interest was also non-taxable in the Uk business, reducing their tax bill to zero.  From memory, TW was paying over 500m a year in interest to itself, offshore.

Put another way - something like 30-35% of you water bill was being creamed off.  Entirely legally and fully available to the public to see.  That's 35% of what you are paying going into someones pocket, without any competition in the market.  Normally I am up for letting things be privately owned and allowing free markets to drive.  This is patently a case where a competent private company could be allowed to run a Publicly owned asset of the people.  Instead, financiers stitched you up.

The point is, that Nationalisation, as shown by your response, is not a centre anything policy, it is clearly left wing, or slanted down one side.  Labour were advocating plenty of it, Blair was not, he was offering out private funding of public services.  The Tories are to the right because they fundamentally think the Govt. should not own these assets at all.

[Flashheart]

According to yougov, around 41% of people would vote for Boris's deal.

That we don't know what that deal is yet, if it ever even transpires, seems irrelevant.

[Nomoreheroes]

I obviously don't understand politics as well as those who have posted over 400 pages of wisdom. However, I don't understand why one would force a negotiation team to admit to their opponents that they were not prepared to walk away without a deal.

If I was selling my car and a buyer told me that they couldn't leave until they bought my car, would I agree to knock anything off of the price or throw something else in to sweeten the deal? No, I'd more likely stick to my guns then set a deadline and/or up the price.