Labour policies

[Sprotyrover]

What chuffing buses?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well yeah Sproty.

Precisely.

40 years of "the market must decide everything" and that's what you end up with.

I live a couple of miles out of Sheffield city centre. When I moved here 22 years ago, we had 13 buses an hour each way and it cost 50p.

Now we have 5 buses each way. Every single one is rammed and the ticket price is 2 quid.

So that's a 60% reduction in service and a compound annual increase in fare of 6.5%, in an era when inflation has typically been 2-4%.

f**king grand, eh?

And here's the really stupid consequence.

If we want to go into the city centre shopping, we can stand and wait for a bus that will cost us £11.20 return for 2 adults and two kids. Or we can drive in and pay £2 to park for two hours.

So, obviously, we drive. Which adds to congestion and pollution in the city centre.

THAT'S the problem with The Market. First Bus operate the service to maximise their shareholder value. But no-one manages the damaging knock-on effects for the country and the region and the city and the people.

Nationalise them and run them as a public service, not a business. Make them free like they do in those benighted, third world he'll holes like Luxembourg and Gothenburg. Get cars off the road. It's a no-brainer. Just needs folk to snap out of this mindset that everything has to be market and profit driven.

[bpoolrover]

Where would the money come from if they were to make it free?

[Filo]

Where would the money come from if they were to make it free?

Thats all we ever hear, the same was said of the Clement Attlee government of 1945, the Country was on it’s knees and broke after 6 years of War, the right wing were howling about if Labour won the election the Nazi’s were going to take over. Well they won and that Government saw the introduction of the NHS, the birth of the Welfare State and Nationalisation of essential industries, not bad going from a bankrupt Country was it?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Taxes of course. Like it does in Gothenburg.

[bpoolrover]

That still didn’t answer where the money would come from,that was 2 filo lol

[bpoolrover]

How much do you raise taxes thou

[BillyStubbsTears]

Here's a list of the countries with the highest tax levels.

https://www1.compareyourcountry.org/tax-revenues

Here's a list of countries by reported level of happiness.

https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/the-top-10-happiest-countries-on-earth-according-to-un.html

See the link? Every single European country in that list of the happiest has tax takes WAY higher than ours.

Taxes are not something to be afraid of. If they are used to make life better.

[bpoolrover]

Will look at links shortly bst thank you, no I don’t have a problem with a little higher taxes, not sure if I saw on here or somewhere else, someone recommended raising tax by a penny and giving it to local councils which I thought was a good idea, of course if taxes went up quite a lot you would want to know your money was being spent wisely thou

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

Have you ever been to Holland or Sweden?

Have you seen the quality of life there?

The quality of their houses and cities and transport systems?

Holland has a tax take 5.5% higher than ours. Sweden's is 11% higher.

If we raised our tax take to those levels, it would bring in an additional £150-300bn every year.

The Right will tell you that you can't do that because it will wreck the economy.

But they do it in Holland. They do it in Sweden. So why can't we?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Do you have a source for that claim Bpool?

[bobjimwilly]

Labour have already been open about how they propose everything to be funded, and their manifesto will be costed. So far they predict no income tax rises for anyone on less tan £80,000 a year (95% of the UK). The free broadband, for example, would be funded by enforcing a suitable tax rate on the likes of amazon.

[Filo]

Labour have already been open about how they propose everything to be funded, and their manifesto will be costed. So far they predict no income tax rises for anyone on less tan £80,000 a year (95% of the UK). The free broadband, for example, would be funded by enforcing a suitable tax rate on the likes of amazon.

Unlike the Tory manifesto, as according to Kwasi Kwarteng they are not going to bandy about figures, unless ofcourse when they have a pop at Labour and they’ll bandy about figures all over the place

[bpoolrover]

Have took it off for now till have found it, I did find this link but don’t no how trustworthy source is as I no nothing about 🇸🇪 https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1RL0WU

[bpoolrover]

My worry with your thinking bst, is that you say make the buses free, well there not free as your just paying for them a different way, some people might never get a bus and again they will have to foot the bill,it’s putting a lot of trust in a government to give them your hard earned money and trust them to spend it on the right things

[BillyStubbsTears]

Free at the point of use. Like the NHS.

Thanks for that link by the way, but I'm not sure it does anything to undermine my point.

It says that high tax takes in the 1970s drove people abroad. And that they reduced their taxes after that.

But even after those reductions, their taxes are still 1/3rd higher than ours. And there's no evidence of a flood of high earners leaving the country now.

It's a balance. If you tax 100%, no one will get out of bed to work. So the Govt has zero money.

If you tax at 0% the Govt has zero money. Somewhere in between is a sweet spot. The state of Sweden and Holland compared to us suggests that they are much closer to the sweet spot than we are.

[bpoolrover]

It was not put up to undermine your point as I have no idea if it works or not it was just the latest piece I saw, I will have a proper look after thanks

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way. Those of you still asking how Labour will pay for the things it is planning to invest in. Here you go.

https://mobile.twitter.com/novaramedia/status/1195738297395548160

[bpoolrover]

By the way. Those of you still asking how Labour will pay for the things it is planning to invest in. Here you go.

https://mobile.twitter.com/novaramedia/status/1195738297395548160 it doesn’t say if it will raise enough thou!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool
It's the principle.

It separates out current funding (payment for day to day stuff like pensions, teachers, police, nurses) and capital investment.

Absolutely correctly, it says that if you don't bring in enough in taxes to pay for current costs, you're in trouble. It's like paying more on day to day expenses than you earn - you end up with an increasing overdraft until you go bust.

Labour has said that it will run a current balance. It will not borrow to pay salaries.

But capital investment IS different. As that video says, you spend large amounts but you have something to show for it afterwards. Bridges and roads and school buildings and broadband infrastructure. So it's more like a mortgage. You pay for it over a long time.

But it's subtly different to a mortgage, because the things we pay for also make the country economically better in future. And THAT is how we pay for them. By growing the economy, getting richer and using some of that new wealth to pay the debt.

And the final key point...interest rates for Govt borrowing are the lowest they have ever been. So Govt can borrow to pay for this infrastructure at effectively zero interest. In fact NEGATIVE interest if you take inflation into account.

It is boneheadedly stupid not to do it. And anyone parrotting "but how will they pay for it" now has zero excuse for asking that.

[selby]

  Billy, if they stick to their manifesto like the promises they gave out in 2017, the best place to publish it would be on the back of a toilet door. Just a list of more empty promises.
   I hope they don't use phrases like "Honour  the wishes" in this publishing of fantasies for the gullible.

[Donnywolf]

Labour have already been open about how they propose everything to be funded, and their manifesto will be costed. So far they predict no income tax rises for anyone on less tan £80,000 a year (95% of the UK). The free broadband, for example, would be funded by enforcing a suitable tax rate on the likes of amazon.

Labour have already been open about how they propose everything to be funded, and their manifesto will be costed. So far they predict no income tax rises for anyone on less tan £80,000 a year (95% of the UK). The free broadband, for example, would be funded by enforcing a suitable tax rate on the likes of amazon.

Unlike the Tory manifesto, as according to Kwasi Kwarteng they are not going to bandy about figures, unless ofcourse when they have a pop at Labour and they’ll bandy about figures all over the place

God he is a nauseating figure ! One of the most nauseating in that Party and GOD does he have competition

Johnson
Javed
Hancock
Barclay
Gove
Leadsom

I could go on and on

[Bentley Bullet]

I can just see what would happen if I stretch my imagination far enough to visualise a Labour victory. "Ooh, we didn't realise the books were so bad! Sorry, we can't deliver our manifesto, it's the Tories fault!"

[BillyStubbsTears]

I see the usual crew are determinedly refusing to engage with facts and discussion and just pouring out their prejudices again.

Odd behaviour.

[Bentley Bullet]

The subject is about how Labour would finance their promised manifesto. I don't think they would, and I don't think they will have to anyway.

[selby]

  "Odd" Billy, I call it experienced. The greatest ambitions the labour party have had are always with money taken from someone else, while the real rich investors in the UK take their money elsewhere  for better returns on their investments.
   Only when the terms are right will people invest money, like yourself people will not work for no return, and now it is even easier to invest in industries outside our borders, other countries making it easier and easier to do so aided by new technologies.
 A vote for labour will only accelerate money leaving these shores quicker than ever before, and the people who will be the first to suffer will be those that can least afford it.
   When you point the finger at the usual crew, think that nearly all have started out like you, being brought up to think that the labour party are the party with their best interests at heart, but have learnt by Experience it is a load of empty promises that 1) they can't implement and 2) had no intention of going ahead with their policies in the first place.
 
 

[BradwellRover]

Good luck with Boris then...god help you if you fall on hard times though.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Selby.

You're doing precisely what I said. Not engaging with facts and just trotting out prejudiced opinion.

If you were right in what you say, why do all the Scandinavian countries, and Holland have economies and standards of living so much higher than ours when they charge taxes that are way, way higher than anything Corbyn is proposing?

How did we, alone in the entire OECD, have 11 years of constant, steady growth under the last Labour Govt, before the Global Financial Crash smacked everyone in the head. (Go look it up. We were the only OECD country to grow every single year between 1997 and 2008. How does that tally with your nonsense about Labour forcing business away?)

Frankly, I couldn't give two tosses about your opinions. They are worthless, as are mine. If you're going to make these sweeping generalisations, back them up with some evidence. Otherwise you're just playing the pub bore role.

[selby]

Bradwell, don't worry about me mate, It would be a long fall. And Billy that was the labour party nearest to the conservatives in a Financial boom time throughout the world, when new technologies were introduced throughout the world, and transport became cheap as chips to travel the world.Cars became the transport of the working man, and not just the elite, at the cost of the railway system.  there was a revolution in heating the homes we lived in, and cheap to run, jobs were plentiful for unskilled workers as well as skilled, and we watched TV and the American shows with fitted kitchens, and household gadgets and wanted the same for ourselves, just the same as poor African and Far Eastern peoples try so hard to get here for the same sort of things.
  Now the powers that be, or should I say mostly the opposition want to change that,take singular transport away to reduce the carbon footprint, limit the way you heat your home, etc ,etc. well the best of luck with that, again my experience of life is when you try to force or take things away from people it causes trouble, and will the elite show us the way, will they bo**ocks, someone will make vast amounts of money out of every scheme they come up with, and to hell with anyone it causes trouble to. They will tax people till the pips squeak, and think nothing of it.
 

[BillyStubbsTears]

That's a rather long winded way of saying "no I'm not going to engage in evidence-based discussion."