Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Rogstanley]

5 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Has it? Haven't seen you mention it before. 

 

Is it on the way back up? 

No still falling.

[Innovindil]

2 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

No still falling.

Oh dear. Time to move to the middle east. 

[Fox Ulike]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

Why do these things only become a problem when it results in election results that the establishment don't like? 

Agree.

 

I'm struggling to actually see what CA have done wrong. "influencing voters" "unethical manipulation techniques"

 

"This was a criminal enterprise which clearly wanted to subvert the will of the people - through manipulation, through propaganda"

 

Isn't that what a political campaign does?

 

What's the difference between that, the Daily Mail or the Socialist Worker etc?

 

Edited 21 March 2018 by Fox Ulike

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

Agree.

 

I'm struggling to actually see what CA have done wrong. "influencing voters" "unethical manipulation techniques"

 

"This was a criminal enterprise which clearly wanted to subvert the will of the people - through manipulation, through propaganda"

 

Isn't that what a political campaign does?

 

What's the difference between that, the Daily Mail or the Socialist Worker etc?

 

It is hardly a new thing, right - however the methods do become more and more sophisticated in an increasingly technological age.

 

TBH curbing it in any way at all is a good thing, I think.

[Strokes]

5 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

Agree.

 

I'm struggling to actually see what CA have done wrong. "influencing voters" "unethical manipulation techniques"

 

"This was a criminal enterprise which clearly wanted to subvert the will of the people - through manipulation, through propaganda"

 

Isn't that what a political campaign does?

 

What's the difference between that, the Daily Mail or the Socialist Worker etc?

 

I think it’s a bit more sinister than that.

[Rogstanley]

7 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Oh dear. Time to move to the middle east. 

Indeed. Looking forward to quadrupling my take home pay in the sunshine

 

Will be gone in time so I don’t ever have to experience brexit Britain I reckon.

[Strokes]

3 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

Indeed. Looking forward to quadrupling my take home pay in the sunshine

 

Will be gone in time so I don’t ever have to experience brexit Britain I reckon.

If you need help finding cheap flights dm me bro.

[Rogstanley]

Just now, Strokes said:

If you need help finding cheap flights dm me bro.

It’s ok son I know to avoid the expensive Christmas period.

[Strokes]

Just now, Rogstanley said:

It’s ok son I know to avoid the expensive Christmas period.

Just don’t book in the summer holidays....

[Fox Ulike]

7 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I think it’s a bit more sinister than that.

More sinister than the Daily Mail?

 

You might be right. But at the moment the allegations against them seem vague.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Foxin_mad said:

I have no problem with that. To be honest I have for a long time supported to removal of the pay cap for the public sector workers at the lower end of the pay scales. What I couldn't justify is for example the Chief of Leicester City Council getting 6% on his already astronomical pay package. 

 

All being well more can be afforded but obviously a lot depends on the effects and result of Brexit.

 

I did read it actually.

 

Interesting of course there are a lot of 'ifs' and 'buts' in there, effectively they don't really know. Its a research paper, not and IMF official document. 

 

My biggest issue is that what Labour are proposing in my view does not do any of this. They haven't set out to me what most of the money they propose to spend will actually be spent on. They have sound bited nationalising railways and energy which wont benefit the economy in any way, and aging rail and power network is going to struggle to return on investment. Paying off student debt again, wont exact see much return. I haven't seen any cast iron infrastructure proposals from Labour that suggest the spending would increase our output to the 7% needed to pay back the debt. 

 

Obviously we have fundamental disagreements about debt. No one will ever convince me that it is ever a good thing. Unless you can prove it will be paid back, which no one can. 

Senior managers have completely separate negotiations in much of the public sector. Not sure about the nhs. I suspect not but don't know.

 

Re labour. I support getting rid of tuition fees (or at least minimising them). I support nationalisation of energy and rail. I'd personally then rewrite the law to force cargo off the motorways and onto the railways. I support (surprise, surprise) better pubic sector pay deals. I support more money into core pubic sector departments (health, education, social care, housing, local services). I don't actually support endless debt creation and would want to see infrastructure investment that provides returns.

 

I don't necessarily support every labour pronouncement about spending. I actually wish they'd rein it in a bit at this point and stop making any more promises as they have made enough commitments.

 

Re student loans. If graduates don't have to repay through a 9% levy then there is an additional 9% to be spent in the real economy. Theres your growth.

[Strokes]

6 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

More sinister than the Daily Mail?

 

You might be right. But at the moment the allegations against them seem vague.

I think so, because of the way that it is targeted. They know marginal seats and they know who from Facebook data to target. The daily mail or a newspaper is a one size fits all message, this is personal to you and it’s very dangerous.

I know we’ve joked about Russian bots on here before but essentially this is much worse.

[ealingfox]

11 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

More sinister than the Daily Mail?

 

You might be right. But at the moment the allegations against them seem vague.

 

Have you actually seen any of the in-depth newspaper and TV coverage about this?

 

It's not vague at all and it's beyond allegations now as well.

[Strokes]

Just now, ealingfox said:

 

Have you actually seen any of the in-depth newspaper and TV coverage about this?

 

It's not vague at all and it's beyond allegations now as well.

Quite they’ve confessed, albeit unwittingly. 

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

Senior managers have completely separate negotiations in much of the public sector. Not sure about the nhs. I suspect not but don't know.

 

Re labour. I support getting rid of tuition fees (or at least minimising them). I support nationalisation of energy and rail. I'd personally then rewrite the law to force cargo off the motorways and onto the railways. I support (surprise, surprise) better pubic sector pay deals. I support more money into core pubic sector departments (health, education, social care, housing, local services). I don't actually support endless debt creation and would want to see infrastructure investment that provides returns.

 

I don't necessarily support every labour pronouncement about spending. I actually wish they'd rein it in a bit at this point and stop making any more promises as they have made enough commitments.

 

Re student loans. If graduates don't have to repay through a 9% levy then there is an additional 9% to be spent in the real economy. Theres your growth.

There isn’t much in there that I disagree with, in fact any of it. Although I’m not really pro or against rail nationalisation.

[Guest Kopfkino]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

Senior managers have completely separate negotiations in much of the public sector. Not sure about the nhs. I suspect not but don't know.

 

Re labour. I support getting rid of tuition fees (or at least minimising them). I support nationalisation of energy and rail. I'd personally then rewrite the law to force cargo off the motorways and onto the railways. I support (surprise, surprise) better pubic sector pay deals. I support more money into core pubic sector departments (health, education, social care, housing, local services). I don't actually support endless debt creation and would want to see infrastructure investment that provides returns.

 

I don't necessarily support every labour pronouncement about spending. I actually wish they'd rein it in a bit at this point and stop making any more promises as they have made enough commitments.

 

Re student loans. If graduates don't have to repay through a 9% levy then there is an additional 9% to be spent in the real economy. Theres your growth.

 

Have they yet decided whether they plan to nationalise the whole energy industry or just the networks. If it's the former, I really can't see how that isn't a catastrophic waste of money.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Strokes said:

There isn’t much in there that I disagree with, in fact any of it. Although I’m not really pro or against rail nationalisation.

Tbh I can't actually get that excited about rail nationalisation but it does seem perverse to me that we allow foreign countries to profit from our networks. 

 

What I really want to see is the government spending tens of billions on environmental projects, particularly researching and building induction into major roads so we can electrify our transport and get rid of the petrol engine asap.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

Have they yet decided whether they plan to nationalise the whole energy industry or just the networks. If it's the former, I really can't see how that isn't a catastrophic waste of money.

I can't say 100% but thought it was essentially the networks....?

 

I actually know somebody very well who works at a decent level in one of the big 6 companies. 

We were talking about the government's price cap and he gave some good reasons why it wasn't a great idea.

 

Apparently energy companies that have more than 250,000 customers (so the big 6) are forced to invest in the network/system/whatever. So their costs include this expenditure.

 

The smaller energy companies don't actually want to grow above 250,000 customers and are happy at aiming for just below that. 

 

So forcing big companies to charge the same max as the small companies makes the system unfair/untenable.

 

He did actually concede that nationalisation avoids this problem.

[Guest MattP]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Depends on whether or not you think that CA's work was a key part of Trumps victory this time round and whether or not whichever team the Obama reelection campaign used in 2012 was a key part of their victory then.

 

I would posit that the former is more likely than the latter. 

 

Defintely agree that the only way to not be manipulated is to not give your data to FB in the first place, though.

If CA have excavated personal information then they clearly have questions to answer but the idea this would have played a serious part in the electon is just a bit too far-fetched for me.

 

This isn't new that people are targetted on social media to vote for someone or something that shares opinions they express, Obama was the first person to exploit Social Media to help himself win an election and he was praised for it (rightly so), when those from the other side win an election possibly employing the same tactics it becomes a chattering class conspiracy theory, almost an explanation for those in the establishment to try and find the excuse they need as to why the plebs didn't listen to them. Paranoid thinking is already becoming mainstream and it's getting worse.

 

People voted for Brexit and Trump because over a period of time because significant proportions of both populations didn't like the European Union or Hilary Clinton - that's not going to change. Some people have been trying to reverse these decisions by any means neccessary since they happened and it's starting to become a little bit farcical.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, MattP said:

If CA have excavated personal information then they clearly have questions to answer but the idea this would have played a serious part in the electon is just a bit too far-fetched for me.

 

This isn't new that people are targetted on social media to vote for someone or something that shares opinions they express, Obama was the first person to exploit Social Media to help himself win an election and he was praised for it (rightly so), when those from the other side win an election possibly employing the same tactics it becomes a chattering class conspiracy theory, almost an explanation for those in the establishment to try and find the excuse they need as to why the plebs didn't listen to them. Paranoid thinking is already becoming mainstream and it's getting worse.

 

People voted for Brexit and Trump because over a period of time because significant proportions of both populations didn't like the European Union or Hilary Clinton - that's not going to change. Some people have been trying to reverse these decisions by any means neccessary since they happened and it's starting to become a little bit farcical.

It is difficult to tell how much it did affect things.

 

It's interesting though - pretty much since 2016 political results have made leading pollsters with hitherto brilliant track records look like idiots. Why is that? Polling is a serious business, after all, and such predictions have been made with accuracy in the past (including the use of social media), so what changed? Evidently, there was a factor that these companies were not privy to and I'd be curious about knowing what that was (or is).

 

I'll be honest and say that I struggle to get past my own bias on this one - I think that the current US administration is terrible for the future of humans on the Earth, for minority groups and for scientists too, terrible, in fact, for everyone but a select group, so with that in mind I find it difficult to be equanimous and not accept some solutions that would ensure they stayed as far away from power as possible or minimised the damage they did while in power as much as possible - but with all that said, even trying to consider it through as unbiased a lens as I can I think there is possibly more to this than the social media manipulation that has gone before, simply because the twin results were so shocking. There has to be an explanation more complex than simply "didn't like the EU/Hillary Clinton" out there, because surely that antipathy would have been accounted for, or at least accounted for in November 2016 after being overlooked earlier in the year.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

If CA have excavated personal information then they clearly have questions to answer but the idea this would have played a serious part in the electon is just a bit too far-fetched for me.

 

This isn't new that people are targetted on social media to vote for someone or something that shares opinions they express, Obama was the first person to exploit Social Media to help himself win an election and he was praised for it (rightly so), when those from the other side win an election possibly employing the same tactics it becomes a chattering class conspiracy theory, almost an explanation for those in the establishment to try and find the excuse they need as to why the plebs didn't listen to them. Paranoid thinking is already becoming mainstream and it's getting worse.

 

People voted for Brexit and Trump because over a period of time because significant proportions of both populations didn't like the European Union or Hilary Clinton - that's not going to change. Some people have been trying to reverse these decisions by any means neccessary since they happened and it's starting to become a little bit farcical.

I suppose it depends on the honestly of the information that is targeted upon the selected groups. If, for example, the Tories paid CA to send round fake news about Corbyn (I know, really hard to imagine), there'd be something really dark about that. I give that example are there was noticeably more anti Corbyn stuff on Facebook than Twitter.

I'd like to see if they were involved in anything like this during any election campaign in this country.

[Webbo]

Cutting migration after Brexit could boost growth by encouraging businesses to innovate, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

Robert Chote, chairman of the independent forecaster, told the Treasury select committee there is a possibility lower migration from the EU could "trigger" companies to be "more productive" and deliver an economic uplift.

This is because the associated higher labour costs could "encourage firms to innovate in ways that could increase their underlying productivity," Mr Chote said. "That could have longer-lasting positive effects."

The comment appears in contrast to previous warnings from the economic forecaster that a fall in migration would increase the cost of Brexit.

Mr Chote had been asked by the committee if he could "envisage a situation where a more restrictive migration regime being applied to EU migrants could ever be positive for the public finances."

Net migration from the EU already fell to a five-year low in 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This month, the OBR revised up its GDP growth forecast for 2018, from 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent. The forecaster said: "Productivity growth – measured as output per hour – has been much stronger than expected."

Speaking to the Treasury Committee, Mr Chote also said the UK could see a Brexit boost to growth if it resulted in the Government pursuing policy changes which it was previously "constrained from making by EU membership."

Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative MP and Treasury select committee member, picked up on Mr Chote's words and said: "In other words, we could deregulate, and become more competitive, and [see] faster trend growth rather than disappearing into the economic slow lane with the rest of the European Union?" 

Mr Chote responded: "In the same way, it might lead you in the other direction."

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/20/cutting-migration-could-boost-economic-growth-official-forecaster/

[Rogstanley]

19 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Cutting migration after Brexit could boost growth by encouraging businesses to innovate, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

Robert Chote, chairman of the independent forecaster, told the Treasury select committee there is a possibility lower migration from the EU could "trigger" companies to be "more productive" and deliver an economic uplift.

This is because the associated higher labour costs could "encourage firms to innovate in ways that could increase their underlying productivity," Mr Chote said. "That could have longer-lasting positive effects."

The comment appears in contrast to previous warnings from the economic forecaster that a fall in migration would increase the cost of Brexit.

Mr Chote had been asked by the committee if he could "envisage a situation where a more restrictive migration regime being applied to EU migrants could ever be positive for the public finances."

Net migration from the EU already fell to a five-year low in 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This month, the OBR revised up its GDP growth forecast for 2018, from 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent. The forecaster said: "Productivity growth – measured as output per hour – has been much stronger than expected."

Speaking to the Treasury Committee, Mr Chote also said the UK could see a Brexit boost to growth if it resulted in the Government pursuing policy changes which it was previously "constrained from making by EU membership."

Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative MP and Treasury select committee member, picked up on Mr Chote's words and said: "In other words, we could deregulate, and become more competitive, and [see] faster trend growth rather than disappearing into the economic slow lane with the rest of the European Union?" 

Mr Chote responded: "In the same way, it might lead you in the other direction."

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/20/cutting-migration-could-boost-economic-growth-official-forecaster/

 

The man has been asked to come up with something potentially positive and he has come up with one theory, but he's clearly completely unconvinced by it.

 

Still, at least he has given you lot some straws to clutch.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Rogstanley said:

 

The man has been asked to come up with something potentially positive and he has come up with one theory, but he's clearly completely unconvinced by it.

 

Still, at least he has given you lot some straws to clutch.

"This is because the associated higher labour costs could "encourage firms to innovate in ways that could increase their underlying productivity," Mr Chote said. "That could have longer-lasting positive effects."

He is an expert, moosey.

[Milo]

3 hours ago, Rogstanley said:

Indeed. Looking forward to quadrupling my take home pay in the sunshine

 

Will be gone in time so I don’t ever have to experience brexit Britain I reckon.

You going to rent your house out here...?