June 8th General Election

[John Lambies Doos]

They don't need a further mandate. They already have an iron-clad mandate.

Of course they do... agree 100%, but tell the unionists and the auld codgers this. This needs to be spelt out by our biased public broadcaster

[Dunning1874]

28 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Also someone mentioning Kinnock in a positive sense is, er, interesting. Wasn't he invoking Vichy France last week?

 

That had passed me by and in a state of disbelief I looked it up; it was Stephen rather than Neil. I assume jmo was referring to the latter.

Stephen Kinnock really is absolutely dreadful.

[NotThePars]

That had passed me by and in a state of disbelief I looked it up; it was Stephen rather than Neil. I assume jmo was referring to the latter.
Stephen Kinnock really is absolutely dreadful.

My mistake then! Aye, Stephen is an absolute disgrace. A real stain on the party and Wales.

[lanky_ffc]

1 hour ago, John Lambies Doos said:

 Can you copy and paste? I've no interest in paying for a subscription

If you go on their Facebook page I'm sure they posted a predicted map of the seats.

[thisal]

1 hour ago, flyingscot said:

Problem with that manifesto is it's probably too much to achieve and implement.

The transport side is where I work and some of the manifesto sounds very expensive. People forget that the nationalised companies were not exactly brilliant or well loved.  

We're already paying 3 nationalised rail companies the UK. they just happen to be French, German and Dutch. 

Ps also energy companies.

[George Parr]

2 hours ago, flyingscot said:

Problem with that manifesto is it's probably too much to achieve and implement.

The transport side is where I work and some of the manifesto sounds very expensive. People forget that the nationalised companies were not exactly brilliant or well loved.  

I'd prefer a not exactly well loved nationalised rail service to the fudged disgrace we put up with presently.

 

[Baxter Parp]

2 hours ago, flyingscot said:

Problem with that manifesto is it's probably too much to achieve and implement.

The transport side is where I work and some of the manifesto sounds very expensive. People forget that the nationalised companies were not exactly brilliant or well loved.  

People also forget that British Rail was not subsidised in it's final year and had an average of trains on time slightly higher than the current mobs.

The nationalised industries were not nearly as bad a s the Tories made out.  Surprise surprise.

[Fide]

Look at the absolute and utter nick of this complete weapon:

 

[flyingscot]

53 minutes ago, Consolidate said:

I'd prefer a not exactly well loved nationalised rail service to the fudged disgrace we put up with presently.

 

I'd disagree it is a disgrace. 

Without a doubt there are improvements that can be made, but I think nationalisation is simply playing to the galleries. 

It's hugely popular but then the vast majority of the public don't understand the rail system either.

Edit- This depends on what nationalisation is. Does he mean ROSCOs and TOCs or just nationalising TOCs? 

[mizfit]

Just received my first leaflet of the next GE from the SNP.


Not one single mention of independence, instead focusing on what has been done in the area by them, and what our MP has done at Westminster.

[Jambomo]

35 minutes ago, flyingscot said:

I'd disagree it is a disgrace. 

Without a doubt there are improvements that can be made, but I think nationalisation is simply playing to the galleries. 

It's hugely popular but then the vast majority of the public don't understand the rail system either.

Edit- This depends on what nationalisation is. Does he mean ROSCOs and TOCs or just nationalising TOCs? 

I actually agree with you that the present rail system is a disgrace. There are some areas that have issues but compared to some services elsewhere in the UK (I'm thinking of the Bristol Services here) they are actually well run and efficient.

The main problem up here though (along with the rest of the UK) is prices. It is stupidly expensive to take some journeys and that's where nationalisation comes in. Railways are really the one area that cannot be made more competitive due the fact that there is a finite amount of tracks you can have, rolling stock that can be purchased and run on those tracks etc, stations that can be owned and used. Its not an area where competition can work and we end up with services that can be ridiculously expensive for the normal person.

As someone pointed out elsewhere, if nobody wants to challenge the first group for a service provision, then there is nothing to stop them monopolising the line and charging what they like.

[jmothecat]

I notice it being tweeted that Labour, if elected, would extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland.

[John Lambies Doos]

I notice it being tweeted that Labour, if elected, would extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland.

Assembly matter surely? If assembly gets back up and running that is

[jmothecat]

Assembly matter surely? If assembly gets back up and running that is

That was my first question but I know so little about the politics of Northern Ireland I've no idea.

[strichener]

3 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

People also forget that British Rail was not subsidised in it's final year and had an average of trains on time slightly higher than the current mobs.

The nationalised industries were not nearly as bad a s the Tories made out.  Surprise surprise.

BR in it's final year did not include railtrack which was spun out of BR in 1994 and continued to receive public subsidy.  The nationalised rail industry has never been able to show a profit.

There is also the question of passenger numbers.  In 1997 at the cessation of BR's involvement with the railway there were 800m passenger journeys and now there are 1.6bln.   I am not saying that a nationalised railway would not have been able to manage this growth but it does put into perspective how the current day system differs from the BR days.

[mjw]

Its an election now.

[Dunning1874]

There's no point in the Greens standing in around 30 constituencies only to lose 25 deposits. It's far better to throw everything at seats with a realistic chance of making an impact rather than follow the Lib Dem lead of standing in 59 seats, which amounts to chucking a substantial pile of money on a bonfire.

Glasgow North was one of the held deposits in 2015 and overlaps significantly with the Glasgow Kelvin Holyrood constituency, where Harvie came second in 2016. Adding the ability to focus directly on that constituency rather than trying to get candidates elected on the list all over the country to Harvie's national profile makes it a realistic target.

Edinburgh North and Leith is again a seat where the deposit was held in 2015 and Edinburgh is the Greens' strongest area in the country. Falkirk is being targeted specifically to get fracking on the agenda for the local campaign there.

The only criticism I'd make of the strategy is that Harvie's the one standing. I understand he has the highest national profile so they want to capitalise on that, but if he wins and resigns as an MSP it sends a terrible message symbolically of valuing Westminster over Holyrood, and losing his always excellent contributions in Holyrood would hurt the profile of the party more than they'll benefit from having an MP.

[Baxter Parp]

11 minutes ago, strichener said:

BR in it's final year did not include railtrack which was spun out of BR in 1994 and continued to receive public subsidy.  The nationalised rail industry has never been able to show a profit.

There is also the question of passenger numbers.  In 1997 at the cessation of BR's involvement with the railway there were 800m passenger journeys and now there are 1.6bln.   I am not saying that a nationalised railway would not have been able to manage this growth but it does put into perspective how the current day system differs from the BR days.

The privatised railway hasn't been able to keep up with that kind of growth.

[harry94]

16 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Corbynites are definitely guilty of downplaying the lukewarm attitude that the general public has towards Corbyn but the PLP and the media at large have been utter snakes the past couple of years. This is a good manifesto that I imagine the public at large would support and it's a damn shame if May wins this election on the back of an easy ride from the media, a complete lack of policy and outright lies on the campaign trail.

 

If you look at things in the manifesto in isolation, they are all really popular policies.

Corbyn will most likely be trounced this time round but I wouldn't be surprised to see the next election won by a new leader with a very similar manifesto. The collection of ideas and economic myths will not be defeated in a few weeks but in a few years, people will have a coherent argument on almost every area of government and they will win over time.

The problem I think Miliband had is that he would have loved to introduce something like this but he was trying to compromise with the centre of his party. As a result, he produced very cautious reasoned plans but he didn't really stand for anything and the motivation to elect him wasn't very clear. If he maybe bit the bullet and took this approach, the party would have possibly been in a more powerful position now.

[strichener]

3 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

The privatised railway hasn't been able to keep up with that kind of growth.

It clearly has.  Otherwise there would not have been 1.6bln passenger journeys.