UK General Election 2019

[rory_20_uk]

A reasonable contribution, though many of these are contested, for example the statistical relevance of Labour-LibDem competition. Most broadly, I'm sure the trick Corbyn wants to pull off is to out-organize the Tories on the ground and close the polling gap in the immediate runup to the election - as he did in 2017.




The tactic being used here by some energy and water companies is to transfer operational ownership (not "share ownership," I'm not aware of a way that a company can do that without actually buying back shares) to holding entities in countries outside the EU with which the UK has bilateral investment treaties (or parties to the Energy Charter Treaty, which covers basically all of Europe). The motivation is to have a backstop in the form of recourse to treaty claims to arbitration, because most of these treaties reference "fair market value" with respect to nationalization and enable legal challenges in various forms against governments. I don't know how likely such arbitration would be to come in favor of the private owners, but the prospect of drawn-out litigation is clearly leveled as a deterrent to any perceived undervaluation by a Labour government. However, I don't see how any of this forecloses nationalization.

They have undertaken a share for share exchange, so yes, it looks as though the shares are now owned by a foreign held entity.

What are tariff prices? Prices on imported electricity?

Whether you agree with it or not the purpose of nationalization goes beyond providing marginal relief to consumers.

How are council taxes assessed now, and how important are they? Looking at various info pages, council taxes (a fee for living in a neighbourhood basically) are already assessed according to property valuation. Which seems kind of daft to me, since I gather that renters are subject to the same tax as owners. Or am I wrong?

Tariff prices already exist for some in the UK (generally the poor) and basically stipulate the price something can be sold at. I know that Nationalisation would go further and there is the belief that doing so is of itself going to magically make things better.

Council taxes are assessed by property valuation - BUT the top bracket is c. £500,000 whereas houses go into the tens of millions. So the richer you are the less it matters. Hence why so many rich foreigners like buying property in the UK with the mix of lax oversight, opaque ownership, the asset over time appreciates and the costs of ownership as a percentage to value drop the more it is worth. What renters are subject to is what they agree with the landlord. My house has a large mortgage on it. The bank doesn't pay its share of the council tax either. You could split the taxes into a council tax for living n the area and a property tax for the dwelling itself. I doubt that would change anything.

[Idaho]

Property taxes used to be considered the responsibility of the owner. With the shift to the poll tax, it became the responsibility of the person/tenant. Then alongside this the Tories removed most tenant rights, got rid of any taxes for landlords and sold off council housing. While at the same time making the state pension one of the worst in Western Europe.

Now, if you are poor you pay a huge proportion of you income on rent, and you will be renting until you die - which will be sooner as the state pension will make that same rent unaffordable.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

He is also very Pro Israel and has never commented or criticised any of the extra judicial murders, the wider scale imprisonment without trial, the separation of families, the destruction of homes, the land grabs,etc etc.

If you aren't Jewish, it doesn't really matter as much.

You realise I'm not at all Jewish, right?

This sort of thing does matter to non-Jewish people. Again, it's the consistent othering of Jewish people by Corbyn that people find disturbing.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Speaking of the Archbishop: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...r-antisemitism

Yeah...

[Idaho]

You realise I'm not at all Jewish, right?

Yes. Which is why this rabbi doesn't really give a stuff about you.

[Beskar]

Been dealing with Housing issues for people recently... it is terrible in what is classified as 'minimum standards'. What is even worse is the rent for these properties too, they are above the benefit, so they have to supplement on top with their other benefits.

[Beskar]

On that topic of Chief Rabbi about Labour.
The Muslim Council have condemned the Islamophobia of the Tories.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

On that topic of Chief Rabbi about Labour.
The Muslim Council have condemned the Islamophobia of the Tories.

I said a few weeks ago that this election would come down to which worried you more - antisemitism or Islamophobia.

I'm betting the former will rile more people up because of the historical context, and also the recent terrorist attacks which have eroded sympathy for British Muslims.

[Pannonian]

I said a few weeks ago that this election would come down to which worried you more - antisemitism or Islamophobia.

I'm betting the former will rile more people up because of the historical context, and also the recent terrorist attacks which have eroded sympathy for British Muslims.

Johnson doesn't just hate Muslims though. And unlike Corbyn, who associates with racists, Johnson himself is directly racist. Corbyn is awful. Johnson is far worse.

[Beskar]

Thing is, two candidates have just been suspended for antisemitism... Conservative candidates.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...tland-50468770
https://politicshome.com/news/uk/pol...aiming-british

Do the Tories have a problem with it too? or is it a case that yes, there are some very unfortunate views shared by individuals of all kinds of stripes and colours.

[rory_20_uk]

Not the nicest of sentiments but one was 5 years ago and the other 7.

Frankly, is that it? Two comments?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Johnson doesn't just hate Muslims though. And unlike Corbyn, who associates with racists, Johnson himself is directly racist. Corbyn is awful. Johnson is far worse.

Again, matter of opinion.

For one thing, saying Johnson "hates" people is a bit of a stretch. Does he display that sort of vague, generalised, prejudice against everyone who didn't go to private school? Yes, frequently. Can it be shown to be malicious, or to have directly impacted policy making? Not really.

Boris Johnson is prejudiced in a similar way to Prince Philip, but less so... much less so.

Corbyn is prejudiced in the way Orwell's villains were in 1984.

[Pannonian]

Again, matter of opinion.

For one thing, saying Johnson "hates" people is a bit of a stretch. Does he display that sort of vague, generalised, prejudice against everyone who didn't go to private school? Yes, frequently. Can it be shown to be malicious, or to have directly impacted policy making? Not really.

Boris Johnson is prejudiced in a similar way to Prince Philip, but less so... much less so.

Corbyn is prejudiced in the way Orwell's villains were in 1984.

You need to read more Orwell. Corbyn does not resemble the villains in 1984. It's the Communists in Orwell's essays that Corbyn resembles. But your attempt to excuse Johnson does not wash. Prince Phillip is from another era. People from that era grew up a certain way, and we allow for that. Boris Johnson was born in 1964. He was 21 at the time of the Broadwater Farm Riot, after which Britain took a good look at itself and changed its mores. Unless you want to argue that people of a certain class ought to be given leeway in how they behave.

[Greyblades]

The political campaign of the future, today!

I dont think words can express how simultaniously confusing and amusing this campaign is getting.

[Beskar]

Not the nicest of sentiments but one was 5 years ago and the other 7.

Frankly, is that it? Two comments?

If we use the 2017 YouGov survey to the question: "British Jewish people chase money more than other British people",

True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 27%
Labour: 14%
Lib Dem: 19%

Not True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 45%
Labour: 60%
Lib Dem: 61%


That appears to indicate that those who vote Conservative are most likely to agree with antisemitic remarks than Labour voters given the sample used.

My point is that the claims of antisemitism is rather biased against Labour specifically, perhaps due Corbyn's views on topics such as Palestine, when similar arguments on antisemitism can be made against the Conservatives.

[Furunculus]

Johnson doesn't just hate Muslims though. And unlike Corbyn, who associates with racists, Johnson himself is directly racist. Corbyn is awful. Johnson is far worse.

do you have any evidence that:
1. he hates anyone?
2. he is a racist? **

** by which i use the oxford deictionaries definition: "The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."

[Pannonian]

do you have any evidence that:
1. he hates anyone?
2. he is a racist? **

** by which i use the oxford deictionaries definition: "The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races."

That begs the question, if you are using these tight definitions to exonerate Johnson, of whether you extend these standards to Corbyn too. Do you?

[Beskar]

Independent print a story about a study examining positive and negative articles about political parties in the first week of the election.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9209026.html

Significantly skewed in favour of Conservatives.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If we use the 2017 YouGov survey to the question: "British Jewish people chase money more than other British people",

True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 27%
Labour: 14%
Lib Dem: 19%

Not True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 45%
Labour: 60%
Lib Dem: 61%


That appears to indicate that those who vote Conservative are most likely to agree with antisemitic remarks than Labour voters given the sample used.

My point is that the claims of antisemitism is rather biased against Labour specifically, perhaps due Corbyn's views on topics such as Palestine, when similar arguments on antisemitism can be made against the Conservatives.

I've seen this sort of poll before, and whilst this does indicate a certain level of racism there are acould of things to note:

1. 26% of Labour voters declined to answer.

2. 28% of Conservative voters declined to answer

3. 20% of Lib-Dems declined to answer.

4. Given the above there's a significant margin of error to the Con and Lab views, and this is probably confounded by the fact that Labour voters may feel group pressure to answer a certain way more so than Conservatives - especially when they know their party is getting hammered over the issue.

5. Whilst the averacious Jew is a nasty trope it's significantly less dangerous than the Rothschild Conspiracy, which is the more common form of Left-Wing antisemitism.

[Montmorency]

Council tax is money raised by the local Council, I.E. Parish Council (or City Council); it varies by region. The burden falls on the occupier and because it's a charge for services renters pay the same as owners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counci...he_Council_Tax

The problem is that there's is a top band on the valuation of the property - H in England (£320,000 and above), I in Wales (£424,001 and above) and H in Scotland (£212,001 and above). I'm sure you see the issue here given modern house prices. There are other issues, above-average inflation of the tax under Blair eroded incomes for the poorer people but not the most wealthy whilst caps and freezes since have eroded local government funding.

Tariff prices already exist for some in the UK (generally the poor) and basically stipulate the price something can be sold at. I know that Nationalisation would go further and there is the belief that doing so is of itself going to magically make things better.

Council taxes are assessed by property valuation - BUT the top bracket is c. £500,000 whereas houses go into the tens of millions. So the richer you are the less it matters. Hence why so many rich foreigners like buying property in the UK with the mix of lax oversight, opaque ownership, the asset over time appreciates and the costs of ownership as a percentage to value drop the more it is worth. What renters are subject to is what they agree with the landlord. My house has a large mortgage on it. The bank doesn't pay its share of the council tax either. You could split the taxes into a council tax for living n the area and a property tax for the dwelling itself. I doubt that would change anything.

On the council tax, Labour's new manifesto proposes a second homes tax as "an annual levy on second homes that are used as holiday homes equivalent to 200% of
the current council tax bill for the property[...]" Elsewhere, I've found older reports that Labour was considering the replacement of council tax with property tax. Existing British property taxes include Blair's stamp duty on purchases of land and property, capital gains tax on sales thereof, income tax on income from property, inheritance tax (on global assets!), and annual tax on enveloped dwellings, which I don't understand well enough to summarize (it may have something to do with those rich foreigners). So a straight property tax on the value of land and property seems to be unknown in Britain, which is interesting.

But in the manifesto there's nothing about property tax, and the only other reference to council taxes is "giving councils new powers to tax
properties empty for over a year," which may or may not be related to the aforementioned second homes tax.
("The council tax database indicates that as of October 2018 there are 251,654 properties classed as ‘second homes’ for council tax purposes in England[...]")

I don't know, then, what the current Labour stance on the council tax is, or why they haven't committed to increasing bands. I doubt it has to do with a perception of electoral suicide in light of, you know, the entire rest of the manifesto.

Part of the purpose of nationalization (which is never named as such in the manifesto) is part and parcel with the overall program of decentralization. I guess that means local councils exercising much more decision-making over new and old infrastructure in their jurisdiction.

I've seen this sort of poll before, and whilst this does indicate a certain level of racism there are acould of things to note:

1. 26% of Labour voters declined to answer.

2. 28% of Conservative voters declined to answer

3. 20% of Lib-Dems declined to answer.

4. Given the above there's a significant margin of error to the Con and Lab views, and this is probably confounded by the fact that Labour voters may feel group pressure to answer a certain way more so than Conservatives - especially when they know their party is getting hammered over the issue.

5. Whilst the averacious Jew is a nasty trope it's significantly less dangerous than the Rothschild Conspiracy, which is the more common form of Left-Wing antisemitism.

The number of declined answers is not a margin of error.

We could posit anti-Semitic Conservatives also feel latent social pressure not to report hard attitudes about Jews.

We've already discussed this months ago, where I presented major survey results that the (self-reported) far-left through center-right are roughly similar in anti-Semitic views expressed, but among the far-right the prevalence is several times higher. Due to the fact that the self-identified far-left and far-right make up such small proportions of the population, gross anti-Semitism such as it exists is ultimately a broadly-British phenomenon as opposed to a factional, political, or even religious (wrt Muslims) one. Thankfully, leaving aside relative proportions, the absolute incidence of serious anti-Semitic worldviews in Britain is fairly rare. By all accounts the Muslims have much more to worry about than the Jews.

We can point to policies that have been pursued by both Labour and Conservatives that have harmed Muslims, and that will harm Muslims in the future. What policies have Labour pursued (in contemporary history), or intend to pursue, that will harm Jews?

My only misgiving is that in that one well-known 2018 survey of British Jews, almost all report belief in pervasive anti-Semitism in Labour. Certainly there is almost no polling on these questions so distortions in methodology may come through, but to find almost all of a sample in agreement on something is still remarkable. A quarter of British-Jewish votes were for Labour in 2017, so they can't all be Tories, and these beliefs can't all be attributed to media narratives. One way or another there's clearly something Labour is doing wrong. Since the proportion (86%) who ranked the Labour Party as highly anti-Semitic is the same as the proportion in that survey who think Corbyn is anti-Semitic, it is possible a certain transitive effect has taken hold whereby Labour will always be viewed as anti-Semitic not through the organizational culture or actions of individual members, but according to the status of Corbyn in itself. If this is the case then the corollary is that there are no steps the Labour Party can take to change this perception other than removing Corbyn.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

If we use the 2017 YouGov survey to the question: "British Jewish people chase money more than other British people",

True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 27%
Labour: 14%
Lib Dem: 19%

Not True (Voter Sample)
Conservative: 45%
Labour: 60%
Lib Dem: 61%


That appears to indicate that those who vote Conservative are most likely to agree with antisemitic remarks than Labour voters given the sample used.

My point is that the claims of antisemitism is rather biased against Labour specifically, perhaps due Corbyn's views on topics such as Palestine, when similar arguments on antisemitism can be made against the Conservatives.

What are the p values for the survey? Don't have spssx at home and do not want to crank the formulas manually tonight. But the best you can say absent those values is that conservative voters are somewhat more (not most) likely to agree with statements that are considered anti-Semitic.

[Greyblades]

Its a wierd statement to use as an example of antisemitism, any value judgement in it requires the reader to agree to bad connotations in the term "chase money" as opposed to positive ones, something the capitalist minded would take issue with.

[Furunculus]

LIES!

https://twitter.com/BeccyRyan/status...32664144601090

SO MANY LIES!!!

which is my gently made point about getting all worked up over politicians presenting their package in the most appealing light possible.

[Furunculus]

Its a wierd statement to use as an example of antisemitism, any value judgement in it requires the reader to agree to bad connotations in the term "chase money" as opposed to positive ones, something the capitalist minded would take issue with.

indeed, and somewhat hides the fact that sustained and ubiquitous anti-semitism over centuries has rather excluded jews from trades and guilds, leaving independent finance as a useful avenue of advancement beyond serf-like working of land.

[Idaho]

Again, matter of opinion.

For one thing, saying Johnson "hates" people is a bit of a stretch. Does he display that sort of vague, generalised, prejudice against everyone who didn't go to private school? Yes, frequently. Can it be shown to be malicious, or to have directly impacted policy making? Not really.

Boris Johnson is prejudiced in a similar way to Prince Philip, but less so... much less so.

Corbyn is prejudiced in the way Orwell's villains were in 1984.

You are such a Tory.

Completely unafraid and unconcerned about people who look and sound like you talking about fuzzy-wuzzies or anything else. You've never recognised or cared about institutionalised racism and prejudice, therefore it doesn't really exist.

However you will comb through all and every comment by a socialist, working class or Muslim and cry racist.

As Alexei Sayle has said:

it's absurd to see people who have spent a lifetime campaigning against racism be called racist by racists

[rory_20_uk]

I've seen this sort of poll before, and whilst this does indicate a certain level of racism there are acould of things to note:

1. 26% of Labour voters declined to answer.

2. 28% of Conservative voters declined to answer

3. 20% of Lib-Dems declined to answer.

4. Given the above there's a significant margin of error to the Con and Lab views, and this is probably confounded by the fact that Labour voters may feel group pressure to answer a certain way more so than Conservatives - especially when they know their party is getting hammered over the issue.

5. Whilst the averacious Jew is a nasty trope it's significantly less dangerous than the Rothschild Conspiracy, which is the more common form of Left-Wing antisemitism.

This isn't racism. Jews are not a race they are a religion - a matrilineal one which means in about 100 years the ethnicity of a Jew can change completely. Corbyn appears to be anti-Zionist since he is pro-Hamas who are also mainly ethnic Semites. Is criticising any facet of Israel somehow not allowed now? What about if the UK government had tackled the IRA the way Israel tackled uprisings? We blockade Ireland on the air, land and sea, we sent in tanks and troops and kill anything that looks like a threat and so on and so on. No, in fact the UK is still lambasted more for the acts they did which is nonsensical.

Viewing Jews as wanting to accrue money isn't always negative. Sikhs also as a cohort do so and like displaying wealth. Hell, I also like accruing money and am more focused than my siblings. I haven't had a day off work in over 4 years (I'm self employed). We are different, not right / wrong.

On the council tax, Labour's new manifesto proposes a second homes tax as "an annual levy on second homes that are used as holiday homes equivalent to 200% of
the current council tax bill for the property[...]" Elsewhere, I've found older reports that Labour was considering the replacement of council tax with property tax. Existing British property taxes include Blair's stamp duty on purchases of land and property, capital gains tax on sales thereof, income tax on income from property, inheritance tax (on global assets!), and annual tax on enveloped dwellings, which I don't understand well enough to summarize (it may have something to do with those rich foreigners). So a straight property tax on the value of land and property seems to be unknown in Britain, which is interesting.

But in the manifesto there's nothing about property tax, and the only other reference to council taxes is "giving councils new powers to tax
properties empty for over a year," which may or may not be related to the aforementioned second homes tax.
("The council tax database indicates that as of October 2018 there are 251,654 properties classed as ‘second homes’ for council tax purposes in England[...]")

I don't know, then, what the current Labour stance on the council tax is, or why they haven't committed to increasing bands. I doubt it has to do with a perception of electoral suicide in light of, you know, the entire rest of the manifesto.

Part of the purpose of nationalization (which is never named as such in the manifesto) is part and parcel with the overall program of decentralization. I guess that means local councils exercising much more decision-making over new and old infrastructure in their jurisdiction.

Increasing council tax on holiday homes is a good start... Note it is not second homes required for work, since that might affect MPs!
Gordon Brown always preferred stealth taxes that would bite in the future to visible ones in the present. And rather like how treating alcohol and tobacco in the same way as all other drugs and rating them according to their danger just isn't going to happen due to the past, the UK really has a fetish with homes and owning them and even somewhat redistributive taxes on homes is suicide - not to mention the much more extreme tax on land utility (the basic difference being the former is a tax on what is there now, and the latter is a tax on the potential of the land - so it helps optimise land usage at the expense of sentiment).

I think Labour realises that people are happy to advocate for "rich bastards" to loose their companies and for the State to grab companies but when it is something literally closer to home like the value of their house then the loss of money is much more real.

Nationalisation often leads to centralisation, not localisation. After all, before the railways were nationalised they were integrated companies and run in geographic areas which made sense - compared to the current split of the trains, the lines and the stations which makes no sense. Surely if decentralisation was the purpose, letting local government have control of different taxes would be the way to go rather than central government annexing companies.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You are such a Tory.

Completely unafraid and unconcerned about people who look and sound like you talking about fuzzy-wuzzies or anything else. You've never recognised or cared about institutionalised racism and prejudice, therefore it doesn't really exist.

However you will comb through all and every comment by a socialist, working class or Muslim and cry racist.

As Alexei Sayle has said:

You may recall the thread where I described Monty's presentation of the history of racism in the US Army Air Force as "banal". What you might call "lazy" racism is everywhere, what Corbyn peddles is something rather more than that. It's not just the sideways look, the muttered word, it's not even the spitting and the crossing the street.

No, it's the racism of old men in back rooms talking about how to "solve" the "problem", how to "free" themselves from the pernicious "influence".

[Idaho]

A load of tosh. Repeat the lie until you believe it. This is clearly a deliberate and cynical tactic by the Tories. Their manifesto is empty, their promises are rhetoric, their leader is a bumbling liar and a fraud.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A load of tosh. Repeat the lie until you believe it. This is clearly a deliberate and cynical tactic by the Tories. Their manifesto is empty, their promises are rhetoric, their leader is a bumbling liar and a fraud.

Last night when interviewed by Andrew Neil Corbyn had visible difficulty condemning the Rothschild conspiracy as antisemitic. I find that significant given that he wrote a forward to Imperialism: A Study where he described the book as "controversial at the time" but also "basically right".

That book blames World War I on the Rothschilds and other Jewish bankers - it asserts that they engineered the war so as to profit from the sale of armaments etc.

What so revolts many people about Corbyn is the suspicion that, deep down, he's antisemitic and can't see it. Contrast to Johnson who is completely unembarrassed about his various prejudices, which are superficial by comparison anyway.

[Pannonian]

Last night when interviewed by Andrew Neil Corbyn had visible difficulty condemning the Rothschild conspiracy as antisemitic. I find that significant given that he wrote a forward to Imperialism: A Study where he described the book as "controversial at the time" but also "basically right".

That book blames World War I on the Rothschilds and other Jewish bankers - it asserts that they engineered the war so as to profit from the sale of armaments etc.

What so revolts many people about Corbyn is the suspicion that, deep down, he's antisemitic and can't see it. Contrast to Johnson who is completely unembarrassed about his various prejudices, which are superficial by comparison anyway.

Does anyone know when the Neil interview with Boris Johnson will be broadcast? I'd like to see him give the PM as hard a time as he gave the LOTO.