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TinTower posted:Definitely. #1 and #3 are abhorrent, though. Why is #3 abhorrent? That's a very strong word to use. If a foreign citizen chooses to come to Britain and commits criminal offences while here, why shouldn't we be able to deport them easily? Every other country screens for criminals during a visa application check for example. I wouldn't object if a British citizen is ejected from the US after committing offences there. (I'm assuming a sensible threshold of seriousness to the crime is built in here, so you don't get deported for littering.) I agree with you on #1.
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Dec 31, 2014 12:22
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biglads posted:Is Falange drinking out of a plastic pint pot there? Horses don't like stepping on broken glass. Did he actually go hunting or was he just out in the shires to get Cameron worried about the countryside alliance vote?
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Jan 1, 2015 14:12
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TinTower posted:In other Paedogeddon news, ]a Lib Dem councillor who got caught up in Operation Ore has been formally notified by the Met there is no case to answer. Thanks for the update TinTower, I think I posted about this one a couple of months ago saying it looked like an uncomfortable 'trial by media'. The full story, in his letter published today (assuming no further facts come to light) is a real loving shambles. This man's life has been destroyed by this council. The bumbling police haven't helped matters either. quote:The Metropolitan Police have confirmed in writing that no images were found on my computer and that I was not charged because of a lack of evidence (the only evidence linking me to the offence was someone using my card and email address) despite the council’s claims that the lack of charge was due to a technicality.
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Jan 3, 2015 20:09
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ahmini posted:I seem to recall this was tested in his first appeal application which was thrown out by several judges. Since then he's tried a different route but I don't think the fundamentals of his appeal have changed. There's some confusion here about the legal processes that are ongoing. He appealed the conviction and that appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal. An appeal is necessarily very limited in that you can only appeal on mistakes of law in the original trial. Completely separately from him filing appeals, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is fast tracking their own enquiry into whether there has been a miscarriage of justice. This is far wider ranging and can reconsider the facts and jury findings in the original trial. serious gaylord posted:Thats not quite true is it. This is the heart of the matter - where a woman does not make a complaint of rape and the Crown is driving the prosecution and there are possible inconsistencies in the prosecution case and the jury's decision, it's in everyone's interests to revisit the trial. It's easy to see them as automatically guilty because they're predatory sleazy footballers (and I agree they're scumbags). These facts could arise in any liaison between a group of drunk friends where one party ultimately doesn't remember consenting. I thought one of Oldham's sponsors had something sensible to say on the matter: quote:The company's chief executive, Craig Dean, said he believed it would be "unethical" to seek to influence the situation in either direction. The bolded bit could be applied to any number of pointless public interventions in the media - justice matters should not be decided in the papers or by how many celebrities one side can line up to support their case. It is mildly amusing how, in a thread where jury opinions are normally held to be unreliable, there are so many utterly convinced of his guilt in this case, even though there is an active investigation into a potential miscarriage of justice ongoing. Prince John fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 14:12
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Gonzo McFee posted:It's held unreliable because there are biases in favour and against certain people. Chad Evans had all of the biases in his favour what with him being rich, famous, white and a man. Surely a jury would be biased against him? I certainly would be. "Footballer who earns more in a minute than I probably do in a year for kicking a bit of pig about." "Get's all the girls throwing themselves at him." Or from the older generations - "bringing the beautiful game into disrepute". Are they really that popular as individuals? quote:And he was still found guilty for a crime that is notoriously hard to prosecute. This is a myth (pdf, p15) - juries convict more often than they acquit in rape cases and have higher jury conviction rates than other serious offences (attempted murder, manslaughter and GBH).
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Jan 6, 2015 14:45
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Gum posted:which is what makes him a bad person? Just for the sake of discussion, suppose she did consent to have sex with him (aka he is telling the truth). Is he still a bad person?
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Jan 6, 2015 15:12
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Gum posted:he cant apologise because hes trying to weasel his way out of punishment? you're right, it was totally wrong for me to call him a bad person Allow me to introduce you to all the people serving sentences far in excess of their allocated time because they maintain their innocence and are thus ineligible for parole. Miscarriages of justice happen all the time and, indeed, this may be one. Wait and see what the panel says. tentish klown posted:All you have to back this up is that a) she doesn't remember what happened, b) she was really drunk, and c) the jury decided that she was too drunk to consent. This is the nub of it. She never made a complaint of rape to the police. According to the supporter's website (so take it for what it's worth) there is no forensic evidence linking either men to the 'sexual act'. They were charged entirely based on their own accounts of what happened. It is within the realms of possibility that she may have consented at the time.
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Jan 6, 2015 15:19
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Gum posted:so what are you arguing here? that they might have lied about having sex with her? No, I'm suggesting that they may have told the truth about having consensual sex with her. If she really was too drunk to consent, then it's inconsistent for her to be sufficiently sober to consent to one of them but too drunk to consent to the other. Especially when how drunk she was is heavily disputed and a substantial period (1-2 hours) had elapsed since she had last had a drink. Hookerbot: I do agree with your general revulsion about the attitude. I guess I meant to ask was, "given Evan's attitude is no different to that held by every footballer treating women as objects, should he be barred from football when his compatriots are not?" Edit: Gonzo McFee posted:If you're too drunk to remember consent then chances are you're not in a fit state to give consent, thus making it rape. TinTower posted:You can't consent when you don't have the mental faculties to do so. To reiterate - it's the inconsistency that bothers me. If she was too drunk to consent, they should both be guilty. She had left the nightclub and stopped drinking 1 hour before going back to the hotel. I accept that alcohol doesn't enter the blood instantly, but we don't have a situation where she carries on drinking herself into insensibility throughout the night until Ched Evans shows up when she's comatose. Prince John fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 15:25
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Gum posted:i was under the impression that she was already blackout drunk when she got into the cab. if she was still reasonably sober then, then that does make a difference The receptionist at the hotel testified she appeared to be drunk, but he didn't say she was all over the place. She is on CCTV walking unaided in high heeled shoes and bending down to pick belongings from the road after arriving at the hotel. The porter, listening at their hotel room door, testified that he heard one of the men ask for oral sex. He testified he heard no sounds of distress or struggle, just sounds of male and female voices having sex. She isn't incapable, over 1 hour after stopping drinking, when arriving at the hotel. Therefore I find it odd that she should be more incapable to the point of being unable to consent by the time Ched Evans showed up. I accept alcohol doesn't enter the blood instantly, but it doesn't usually happen over a timeframe of hours. Prince John fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 15:37
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kim jong-illin posted:It doesn't make a difference. Because she can't remember consenting, the jury has to look at her actions to decide if those were in keeping with someone who had likely consented to having sex. Willingly getting into a cab with someone to go to a hotel implies that she may have consented to having sex, which is the suggested outcome of getting into a cab with someone you met outside a chip shop and going back to their hotel. That doesn't mean she did consent, it just means there's enough doubt over whether she did that you can't safely convict someone of rape, which is why the first guy got acquitted. Don't the jury have to decide whether the prosecution have proved she didn't consent, beyond all reasonable doubt? A lot of your explanation seems to place the burden of proof on the defendant - i.e. "enough doubt that you can't safely convict". It's as if their guilt is predetermined, unless mitigating factors are available.
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Jan 6, 2015 15:53
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baka kaba posted:Wait, is this supposed to be evidence in his favour? Rape is notoriously difficult to prosecute anyway, if they still managed to find him guilty based almost entirely on what he and his friends said happened then that's pretty loving damning wouldn't you say? It's not notoriously difficult to prosecute - this is a myth. It has higher conviction rates than other serious crimes. They haven't convicted him on what he said happened (he said it was consensual) - I just find it odd that he's volunteered a version of events to police that he obviously regarded as non-controversial but had he just 'no commented' then none of this would have ever happened. I'm not really seeing how it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was rape, given the only version of events was his own and he said it was consensual. It all seems very wishy washy and full of inconsistencies. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the courtroom. In other, tangentially related news, there have been renewed calls for anonymity for people accused of rape by Mark Pritchard. quote:In a short statement outside the House of Commons, Mr Pritchard thanked fellow MPs and constituents for supporting him since the news of his arrest emerged six weeks ago.
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Jan 6, 2015 16:10
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baka kaba posted:Probably because what he described was considered rape, even if his tagline was 'it was totally consensual bro'? I'm not really seeing the general confusion here Fundamentally, the inconsistency between being drunk enough to consent for one but not the other. Jose posted:How much of this are you taking off his supporters website rather than the stuff related to the trial that was made public? Just the piece about the forensic evidence (which I tagged as such). The rest is just from my memory of when I last looked into the details around the time of the appeal. If the Criminal Cases Review Commission decides there has been a miscarriage of justice, and he's innocent, will that change people's opinions? It's not everyday they deign to look into cases, let alone fast track them.
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Jan 6, 2015 16:30
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Jedit posted:A&E stories My Dad ended up in A&E on Boxing Day after falling and badly twisting his knee three times walking (he's getting on a bit - the second two were trying to get back to the car). We rang our local minor injuries clinic but they said it needed an x-ray and to head over to the hospital. We duly did so and he was x-ray'd, seen and out within 3 hours, with a snazzy pair of crutches, and had a physio appointment within two days. Thank you NHS.  Edit: Comparing that experience to that of my friend, who had been living in Spain and dealing with Spain's equivalent of the NHS, was night and day. They don't even have a supply of crutches to give out. Prince John fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 19:19
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Gonzo McFee posted:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/almost-nobody-in-the-uk-is-opposed-to-rent-controls-for-housing-9955679.html I support nationalising the railways, but has the economic consensus moved on rent controls? Isn't it (literally) a textbook example in how government intervention can cause more problems than it solves? It may be popular, but as that well-posted link says, the British public are wrong about almost everything... I seem to remember a decent post in here setting out all the difficulties with it. Was the pre- 1988 deregulation situation actually a 'rent control'? The article just says local authorities could help negotiate rents downwards for private tenants. Was there an actual ceiling on rent back then?
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Jan 6, 2015 21:56
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Total Meatlove posted:The copper who was protecting some journalists right to free speech, who was then murdered in the street begging for his life, was definitely also guilty of something as well 'cos ACAB. I'm sure that video has been well bookmarked by a couple of our more virulent cop-haters itt. What a miserable mess this whole episode is.  I still find it baffling that people are driven to kill by cartoons.
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Jan 7, 2015 15:19
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EmptyVessel posted:I'm old enough to remember an active, vibrant squatting community. There is no need to go as far back as the 50s either - I had friends who lived here I'm assuming that by describing them as an 'active, vibrant community' that you think their presence was a net positive. For those of us who weren't around then (and just going off the wikipedia article you linked), what was laudable about stopping a university from providing some student accommodation?
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Jan 7, 2015 16:06
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notaspy posted:One of the things that is interesting about this attack is where they attacked as it says something about a nation and its view of itself. I wonder whether you're giving them too much credit. Charlie Hebdo was attacked because it's already an Islamist bogeyman - a straightforward 'revenge' attack. Surely the targets of tube and buses in London were chosen as it's the easiest way to kill the most people? The tube is, after all, used by tourists and for leisure as well as the two rush hours - they could have targeted Canary Wharf tube station if they wanted to go after bankers. I guess I have trouble imaging terrorist decisions made based on cultural considerations, rather than motives such as maximising fear or casualty count.
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Jan 7, 2015 18:24
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stickyfngrdboy posted:Can you explain this to me? I have no idea which peaceful protesters you mean because I have very little knowledge of the publication. Ditto please. Aren't they a hard left publication?
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Jan 7, 2015 18:49
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Blue Star Error posted:Is it possible these gunmen did it to draw attention away from Ched Evans getting a contract at Oldham? Post of the day - brilliant! Total Meatlove posted:Fair enough, it was a point easily missed. I was just coming here to post this - I've seen them described (now in multiple news sources) as a hard left wing, anti-establishment, anti-racism and anti-religion satirical paper to whom no topic is sacrosanct. Characterising them as a rag with racist goals doesn't seem right. Even the picture posted above with the bullets is more a bad taste joke about the futility of faith than "celebrating protestors being shot" or being "for innocent people being shot". The Beeb has an article about the French satirical tradition and Charlie Hebdo's place in it in case anyone hasn't read it.
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Jan 7, 2015 23:35
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Wolfsbane posted:
The whole article reads very seductively, but he also hasn't dealt with the mechanics of moving away from the capitalist system. He labels all these jobs pointless because they only exist within a capitalist system, but then attributes it to a great conspiracy to keep the status quo in existence. I'm not sure he puts forward any convincing arguments for this conspiracy - companies (on the whole) aren't in the habit of pissing money down the drain - they hire people into these 'pointless' jobs because they add real value to the company, as it participates in the capitalist economy. To take ThomasPaine's example of headhunters - even they add real value to a company. If they're trusted and can use a network of contacts to funnel and filter high quality candidates towards you for middle/senior positions who might otherwise not have seen your vacancy then that's a valuable service and will save your senior people a ton of time. As long as the capitalist system persists, companies will continue to make rational decisions by employing people in jobs that he sees as meaningless (essentially non-manual ones). Unless the entire economy switches overnight, I can't see how it would be in the best interests of any company to stop employing people to so-called 'useless' positions. Edit: Oberleutnant posted:I found this article fascinating. It's a journal by a senior doctor covering one average night of his running an A&E department. It's got some really interesting (to me, a layman) insights into the bureaucracy involved in even the simplest stuff. This is a very interesting and depressing article. Makes you want to beat all of our politicians collectively over the head with it until they see some sense. Prince John fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 15:24
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TinTower posted:In ACAB news, the Met have formally admitted in a FOI request that the SDS stole the identities of dead children for undercover purposes. Not particularly anything new, but at least they're formally admitting it. As I'm clearly far less sentimental than most of the people up in arms about this, can somebody explain what the big deal is please? And why is there no outrage over the majority of 'victims' who were adults? What if they used the identities of the deceased from 100 years ago - would that be acceptable? I can understand why using real identities would simplify the process of building a fake identity, but even picking random forenames and surnames from a book would still include the names of dead children and dead adults. Zephro posted:This would be an awesome thing for them to put on their cover, now that they've said they're bringing the paper out next week. They did something similar after they were firebombed last time, so they have form.
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Jan 8, 2015 18:08
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Guavanaut posted:I guess that's one of the differences between extremists and fundamentalists (or inward and outward looking fundamentalists). You can see the same thing with the Christian right, why can't they be content in their belief that all of those gay people they so hate aren't going to heaven, instead of going out and harassing/intimidating them over it? I've always been tempted to see it as a question of how literally the religious text is interpreted. The moment you get somebody who is prepared to defend that their religious text is the absolute written word of whatever God, the wider society has a problem. If the believer is able to perform the mental gymnastics to start interpreting bits of their religious texts in a symbolic or non-literal way, they're far more able to skip over the inevitable passages (in both the Bible and Koran) where violence could be seen to be advocated. In this comment piece on the battle for free speech, the author makes the point that speech can be stifled even when it's not criticism or satire: quote:It was the Salman Rushdie affair that served as the first symptom of this. Since then, like a dull toothache given to periodic flare-ups, the problem has never gone away. I myself had first-hand experience of just how intractable it can be in 2012, with a film I made for Channel 4. Islam: The Untold Story explored the gathering consensus among historians that much of what Muslims have traditionally believed about the life of Muhammad is unlikely to be strict historical fact - and it provoked a firestorm of death threats. I'm sure publishing pictures of a gay Jesus would be just as likely to bring forth fundamentalist Christian death threats were this to have happened in the US of course. Fundamentalism in general should be fought, marginalised and ridiculed at every opportunity, or the self censorship that we are now forced into adopting will simply creep further. How many UK news outlets have felt brave enough to re-publish the cartoons in solidarity? As the journalist commenting on Channel 4 yesterday pointed out - terrorism works and journalists self censor as a result.
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Jan 8, 2015 18:41
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Blimey, 1.3 million more people using A&E last year compared to 2010 according to Vince on Question Time. That's a heck of an increase.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:32
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Disinterested posted:If you shut hundreds of loving GP surgeries, it's almost as if people will go anywhere for their minor medical problems Is the GP contract change the single biggest gently caress up in the recent NHS do you think?
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Jan 9, 2015 10:29
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Geokinesis posted:Whilst that article is 2yrs old this paragraph really needs to be noted as Care UK runs the most regions 111's in the country. (The others are mainly run by ambulance services, a smattering of single area companies and a few charities.) Fffff, why can't people stop privatising the NHS! Is there any party that actually won't put things out to tender, whatever they are? I thought that was Labour, but then discovered that they'd kicked off the tendering process for that hospital. In other news, yet another terrorist attack in Paris. This time in a kosher supermarket. Hostages have been taken.
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Jan 9, 2015 14:02
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Jedit posted:I just saw someone saying that we should vote Tory because we'll be better off financially, and that we shouldn't tax the rich or the middle classes because they wouldn't like it. I need some advice, UKMT: under exactly what circumstances is murder legal in the UK? Are you still allowed to kill a Scotsman armed with a bow and arrow, except on Sundays, or whatever that wacky law was? Prince John fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jan 12, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 15:49
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Zephro posted:^^ Hey don't sweat it. Turns out we're going to privatise all the things: Didn't Tony Benn try and introduce something similar during his tenure? Not for profit cooperatives run by the employees are a very different kettle of fish to handing services over to a profit making corporation owned by separate shareholders. Seaside Loafer posted:How is that actually possible, public sector wages are already poo poo, there has to be something more to that statement, it has to be taken out of context somehow. Public sector wages are ever so slightly higher than private sector on average, and a fifth higher once you factor in the value of pension entitlements, according to the first study to compare the impact of both. quote:Workers in the state sector received a fifth more than counterparts at private firms when pensions were factored in, according research published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The think tank said teachers, doctors, nurses and other state employees received an average of £28,000 a year, while private workers received £27,000.
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Jan 13, 2015 15:40
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Would renationalisation be affordable? I was thinking about the mechanics the other day - is it as simple as waiting for (e.g.) rail contracts, or hospital contracts to expire, by which point they are nationalised by default? For actual companies, such as Royal Mail or British Gas - presumably the government would have to reach into its pockets and find £billions to physically purchase the shares. BT has a market cap of £50bn just by itself for example.
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Jan 14, 2015 11:02
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Wolfsbane posted:Which was my point. One of the problems I have with politics at the moment is the conflation of "what can we do" with "what is politically likely". There are a huge number of things we could do, but the discussion is always about the huge gulf of ideology between 12% cuts and 14% cuts, or the precise details of what's on the school curriculum (entire education system will remain the same in all respects). The trouble is that passing a law to appropriate shares from private citizens and companies with no compensation is theft, plain and simple. Rational economic actors, be they Britons or foreigners would react accordingly to an assault on private property rights like this. Britons would move assets abroad where they could, to avoid a future appropriation. Foreigners would be reluctant to let the government buy goods or services on credit, or invest in substantial UK assets that might be appropriated in future. There would probably be another run on the pound. It would be so disruptive that you could imagine it leading to market turmoil and a falling stock market perhaps? We run a substantial current account deficit with the rest of the world. Currently we can let it trundle along, with the promise that these foreign liabilities are repaid in the future. If the rest of the world loses confidence in sterling or the British economy, we may find ourselves unable to finance the current account deficit, which would necessitate an abrupt reduction in consumption for the country. As for real world examples, perhaps Venezuela in the 1960s? That led to international sanctions. I'm sure there must be other, more recent examples, that I'm not aware of - has Russia done this in the last few years? There's an article on whether it's legal under international law here but I don't have access to journals so can't see the conclusion. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on consequences from someone with more economics knowledge than me though. Prince John fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 13:18
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Wolfsbane posted:Can you link to anything on this? As far as I can see Venezuela was a dictatorship up until 1958, and the economy was largely stabilised in the 60s due to high oil prices. Sorry, don't know what I was thinking when I wrote Venezuela - I meant Cuba. More generally - yes I think I'm in agreement with you. If we're only talking nationalizing by printing money then it will be inflationary, but probably not catastrophic in the way that just appropriating the assets would be. Prince John fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 14:00
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Coohoolin posted:You get to hear their views anyway- and why should Scotland, the second largest country in the UK, have their majority party dismissed like that? We also have undecided voters who would want to see Sturgeon debating against the other parties. Especially since I thought we were all supposed to be equally important in this United Kingdom, or at least that's what we've been told by the establishment. Equally important means assigning equal importance to an individual Scot as to a Briton. That means you're 8% important. Treating Scotland equally doesn't mean boring the other 92% of the UK to tears listening to a politician they will never be able to vote for in a national election. vv Where don't Labour run out of interest? Edit: Question answered, interesting. The Tories, clearly the only party with legitimacy! Prince John fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 18:45
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OwlFancier posted:One nice thing that's happened since the recession is that a lot of banks and building societies seem a lot more up front and willing to help you out if you're struggling fianancially. I dunno if they've always been happy to do that or whether it's a new thing but certainly it seems more publicised. Talking to your bank or creditors is a good idea if you're up poo poo creek because they do generally seem keen to not have you go bankrupt. I think i remember some announcement about the government forcing banks to properly explore alternatives to default in return for accessing government guarantees.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:23
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ThomasPaine posted:Certainly with the question about a 'sixteen year old grooming a forty year old', I appreciated the fact that he seemed to really think about it rather than trip over himself to condemn the older party like all the politicians. He went about it pretty badly and could have come across better, but discussion is good there because it was actually a very interesting question. He was certainly spot on about the way we idealise childhood today, and how it's pointless to just draw an arbitrary line on a complex and individual transitional period (not helpful legally, but again I think that just shows him thinking like an academic). It was an interesting case and there's always an interest group to condemn any decision made by the courts these days. In this case, I believe the girls' friends testified that she had set out to stalk and seduce him and the judge's summing up remarks seemed relatively well thought out. Ultimately the guy had consensual sex with an adult. He abused his position of trust however and as a result has been nationally shamed, banned from his career for the rest of his life and has a two year suspended sentence hanging over his head. That seems a punishment that's "severe enough" and I'm not sure why it would serve the interests of justice to send him to prison at great cost to the taxpayer. Some Guardian commentator banging the 'victim blaming' drum was equating it to underage child rape and omitting certain testimony from the trial which I thought was very dubious journalism. Edit: Angry internet goons get to fantasise about a "cyber-attack" on the bankers. How does this even work? Do they get a volunteer bank and see what damage the military can do to their systems from outside? Prince John fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 12:42
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Zephro posted:Yup, it's called penetration testing. Ah, that sounds a bit more tame than what I was expecting from some war games. I thought they might try some real world attacks to test mitigation strategies rather than some guy running a preconceived suite of tests.
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Jan 16, 2015 18:33
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Saki posted:Our economy could actually get much, much worse. And you don't have to look too far away in Europe to see examples of it. Amen to that. Torygraph, on Greens posted:“Richer regions do not have the right to use migration controls to protect their privileges from others in the long term,” the party’s policy book states. I'm not a foaming at the mouth UKipper wanting to wall up the Channel Tunnel, but this seems somewhat impractical. Do the Greens have any idea just how many tens of millions (hundreds?) are dispossessed or in refugee camps? It may be a laudable sentiment, but I'm not sure unilaterally removing the UK's border controls and guaranteeing a mincome to anyone who rocks up is very sustainable. Edit: vv Sure, but he was replying to the comment "Literally could not be worse" which is plainly bollocks. Prince John fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 12:11
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OwlFancier posted:I still think it's weird that you could realistically try to sell "more public spending" as a bad thing? Hint: They want you to decide how to spend your money. They don't want it to be the government's money in the first place. It's a different perspective to the one you're coming from.
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Jan 20, 2015 13:14
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^^ I'm not saying it's right, just that Ober needs to put himself in a different mentality to understand it. OwlFancier posted:No? How does that work? 2008 happened because the international banking system was revealed to be a giant joke and the economy, which apparently exists as a function of everyone's mass belief in the power of international finance, went down the shitter as a result. Least that was what I thought? Keynesianism suggests you should run a budget surplus when your economy is booming, so you have plenty of scope to ramp up government spending as stimulus during a recession - basically a war chest. Labour ran a massive deficit during the boom years which (it is argued by the Tories) therefore constrained the ability of future governments to borrow more to provide stimulus when it was needed during the recession. The thread consensus is that this is bollocks, and governments can basically spend as much as they like with no consequences. The international economic consensus (based on the policies of other governments and central banks) is that government debt does matter, hence austerity to combat excessive spending. This seems to be partly supported/driven by the attitudes of the markets when they periodically have to refinance the public debt of the worst offenders. I can't speak authoritatively on the academic consensus - there are economists arguing both perspectives. The Tories take the view that responsible government spending is important and that Labour's previous overspending necessitated austerity and they therefore campaign accordingly. Edit: I should say that I don't actually know which side is right about deficit spending, but I think that's basically the position. Prince John fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 13:31
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Gonzo McFee posted:The majority of the deficit came from bailing out capitalism as it poo poo the bed again. That's a nice soundbite, but terribly misleading. The NAO puts the cost of the bank bailout at £141bn at March 2013. That's pretty small in the grand scheme of things - the deficits were: 2006: 32bn 2007:36bn 2008:69bn 2009: 156bn 2010:149bn 2011: 121bn 2012: 100bn
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Jan 20, 2015 14:03
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ThomasPaine posted:But HS2 is a giant white elephant? I thought even the civil service's time and motion studies showing the economic benefit of on-train working had been discredited, which was a key plank of the so-called return on investment. I hadn't realised that anyone but the government was still in favour of it. It's a colossal amount of money for something that delivers only unspectacular decreases in journey time.
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Jan 20, 2015 16:02
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Lord Twisted posted:What if a company buys shares in another company, and gets paid a dividend by that company? Is that part of profits? Sorry to be a pedant, but dividend receipts in the hands of a UK company are generally exempt from corporation tax, barring the occasional edge case.
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Jan 20, 2015 16:44
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