YouGov Poll - 33 Point lead!

S

SuperStu

Well-known member
SuperStu said:
Tuition fees, ASBOs, no nationalisations, nothing done about Thatchers anti trade union legislation, the way tax credits were used to top up wages without costing employers. You'll of course say but what about minimum wage but overall I really don't think there's much of a case to say Brown was a leftwing CoE. He was a privatise profits, socialise losses type.
Click to expand...
Lefty said:
You think he is on the Right. Mental.
Click to expand...

What sensible debate @BoroMart? Why should I respond to this with anything more than sarcasm? What would be the point?
 
BlindBoyGrunt

BlindBoyGrunt

Well-known member
Lefty said:
Not what I said. The cost to the country via the additional healthcare costs, lost man hours, sickness benefits etc would have been far more than not providing these facilities. As I understand it, that was the choice. There weren't sufficient public funds available at the time.
Click to expand...
The country can borrow as much as it wants. It doesn't have to rely on money that is already available, though that is what Governments - even to this day - want us to believe. And none of the main parties are willing to explain or admit this, which was my initial point.

A couple of examples:-

Since the Last labour Government the country's debt has risen exponentially despite the con trick which was austerity. By 2020 the UK was in far greater debt than at the end of the financial crash. Look how much money they found for the Covid pandemic though. In March 2022 it was up to £410bn

Secondly, Labour were floating their PFI intentions in the late 90's as you said. but even by 1999 people were calling it out as a con. However, putting that to one side, the country were far worse off a decade later, after the financial crash, but how much money did Brown produce to bail the banks out and where did that money come from? The answer according to Wikipedia is £138m made up of loans and new money. And guess what? It was mostly recouped by 2022.

Wiki: "At peak, the cash cost of these interventions was £137 billion, paid to the banks in the form of loans and new capital. Most of this outlay has been recouped over the years. As at October 2021, the UK Office for Budget Responsibility reported the cost of these interventions as £33 billion, comprising a loss of £35.5 billion on the NatWest (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) rescue, offset by some net gains elsewhere."

In short, that path was always open to Brown and Blair and would have been much cheaper, and would not have left the NHS with the debt is struggles with to this day, pouring interest payments into the pockets of private firms and investors.
 
S

SuperStu

Well-known member
Lefty said:
Apologies.

Also for how much this thread has veered off topic.
Click to expand...

No apology necessary. For what its worth I actually don't mind you saying my posts are mental :ROFLMAO: but to my mind the quid pro quo for that is that I can do a sarcastic response. It's a message board not some university debate club. Wasn't meaning to have a go at you as much as try to get the post police to see their biases might be involved.
 
Scrote

Scrote

Well-known member
Lefty said:
There weren't sufficient public funds available at the time.
Click to expand...
As has been pointed out a billion times and more on here, that isn't true.

It's not just that it isn't how government spending works. It makes no sense in and of itself if the answer to low public funds is to saddle the future wirth debt. It's an argument that defeats itself at the first hurdle.

Blair (and Brown to a large extent) was happy to suck up to the markets and the media. They were his people, by and large, and he wasn't going to rock the boat.

Starmer is just more of the same (and a much poorer version of it).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top