Not at all - it is what the EU will become over the next 10-30 years and the lack of influence nation states will have on their own rule making that is really at stake here. The EU simply want a central body of unelected bureaucrats i.e. the council and the commission to effectively rule the EU and the last thing they want is pesky individual nations throwing spanners in the works.

I see you have failed to comment on McDonald - but you lefties all want to be comrades and not functioning members of society - be careful what you wish for.

I'm no fan of McDonald (or Corbyn), you will see that from many of my previous posts.
However, equally, I'm not falling for the Tory 3 card trick either.

We've had 10 years of austerity and then we are supposed to be happy that police numbers will be reversed and put back to where they were 10 years ago ??
And we supposed to be happy that the NHS, despite "record funding" is still going to be worse than when it was taken over by the Tories 10 years ago ??
We have a Prime Minister that is playing games and cant mutter a word without telling lies.
Even his "oven ready" deal can not be finalised by the end of next year and we are therefore being asked to accept a "no deal" exit at the end of 2020, when all of a sudden ,he will blame those "nasty" Europeans and probably suggest that "I didn't want to leave with no deal but.....)

I'm hacked off that Labour are incapable of properly calling this bunch of charlatans out and tat with Corbyn (and McDonald) at the helm, will allow the spectre of Brexit and for The Tories to gain another 5 years in power.

As I said, to have the promise of being back where we were 10 years ago is just depressing and all with the likelihood of another recession to have to deal with.

This election is all rather surreal, with many well respected Tories, Clark, Hessletine, Osborne etc now suggesting that their supporters vote for other parties.
Many of these of course are pro European but, it's sad that the centre left of the Tories and centre right of Labour have all been annexed and we now have the two main parties at polar opposites of the political spectrum.
The voice of reason has disappeared from both and we will shortly be ruled by politicians who would have been considered "extreme" 25/30 years ago.

Progress ? I dont think so.

Why have we had years of austerity - because the Tories inherited a complete financial mess from the last Labour government. When things are so catastrophic something has to give and it takes a lot longer to put in right than it does to get into the mess in the first place.

As is often the case in life you have to go backwards before you can go forwards again. Now there is a chance of some progress.

You also have Labour grandees such as Blair saying don't vote for Corbyn and then you have the Chief Rabbi calling him out too? Seems Johnson is not the only one shy of explaining himself.

Brexit he has a deal than can be progressed to the next stage quickly - the Tories are the only party that can promise that. Will we leave with no deal - a distinct possibility - everyone knows the crunch doesn't come until the 11th hour and if the remainers hadn't cut his legs off Boris would have done a better deal than he did.

The NHS needs a fundamental review - what do we actually expect of it - once we have decided that then agree how best to fund it. You will never be able to put sufficient money to do all things for all people.

Personally for all their failings are there are many still believe a government that encourages business is better than one that want to take control back into the public sector - that's a personal view.

Interesting thoughts on the need for Austerity.
Government borrowing as a % of GDP is higher today than when the Tories came to power 10 years ago and yet, now, they can spend freely because "borrowing is under control" ??
As for Brexit, we both know that, depending on whether the Tories gain a big enough overall majority, the UK will leave with "no deal" at the end of 2020, blaming the EU for not giving them everything that they want.
You will have noticed that there will no longer be anyone willing to go against Boris/Farage/Cummings - a party stacked with yes men and the (significant)move to the right may well mean that the "oven ready" deal, never actually gets "baked".

This has been thoroughly debunked, over and over again; the need for austerity was the biggest lie ever told.

"Politicians, but also the media, told us the government had to cut spending to prevent another financial disaster. Most economists disagreed with this theory. There was never even a chance of a financial crisis in the years after 2010, and even when that became clear to everyone, austerity continued. I estimate the average household lost resources worth £10,000 as a result of this disastrous policy, and many suffered much more than the average."

[iSimon Wren-Lewis - emeritus professor of economics and fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford[/i

And the biggest "laugh" of all is that we are all expected to bow and be grateful to Boris for promising (an interesting word to use for a perpetual liar) to spend and restore education and policing to where it was 10 years ago, never mind where it would / should have been today had spending carried on as it was.
Austerity was the Tories "big chance" to slash public spending, which, after all, doesnt really affect your average Tory voter (apart from some of their older voters, of course).
The utter disgrace of pushing more people into poverty in order to give tax cuts to those who need them least is just disgraceful and to hear voters wanting to get Boris into power because they "like him", makes me vomit.

" most " economists that must mean" some " agreed the policy was needed. Who is right depends on your political view. A quick Google on Simon wren-Lewis gets it wrong again might help

The catastrophe was not of Labour making unless they were also running the American economy at the time. They chose to save the banks in order to protect people’s money.
I would remind you that the Conservatives promised to balance the books within four years and to protect our AAA rating neither of which they did. The continuation of austerity was a political choice.

Not like the Tories to miss their targets and then blame someone else, especially with those at the helm of the current shambles.
Boris "liar" Johnson, Michael "back stabbing" Gove, Jeremy "love the NHS" Hunt - they certainly deserve each others company, that's for sure.

Austerity?

No Austerity in the board room guys, “filled us boots”.

What was the Tories plan - reduce the deficit - has that happened? Even you have to admit it has fallen significantly since 2009 when under Labour it was £90bn - about £110bn in today's money was in 2019 approx. £25bn. So they have done what they set out to do. Austerity was required because of the financial situation the Tories inherited i.e. a massive surplus of government spending over revenue generation.

It is very unlikely the UK will leave with no deal - as for yes men you can hardly say the Corbyn has many 'no men' in his inner clam. Your myopia is duly noted

"Was austerity necessary?
It can be argued that a rapidly rising public debt is dangerous and that if a country’s public debt is excessive, its economic performance suffers. So it is necessary to stop the public debt rising inexorably and to put it on a downward path.
The longer one delays implementing necessary austerity, the more painful the cuts will be when they come. So the fiscal problems the UK faced in 2010 meant that some measure of austerity was necessary."

"Postponing the introduction of austerity until the economy had recovered sufficiently would not have been credible. The markets would have taken the view: “If the government can find one excuse for failing to implement austerity immediately, it will surely find another excuse in (say) a couple of years – perhaps it will then argue that the recovery ‘is not yet fully consolidated’.” So a promise to introduce austerity “when the time is right” is unlikely to have been believed."

"What would have happened if we had delayed austerity? The likelihood is that the budget deficit would be expected to be higher over the next few years, meaning a much higher stock of government debt in the future. In order to induce investors to hold this debt, the government would have to offer a higher rate of return. So long-term interest rates would be expected to be higher in the future – and this should push up current long-term interest rates."

My dad's bigger than your dad - we can all quote a side of the story to suit our argument - doesn't mean its definitive.

Labour was running a huge budget deficit - that had nothing to do with the banks and they had agreed that spending needed to be reduced and they would have done the same if they had stayed in power. Projections for 2010 were £190bn!!

Why is it unlikely that we'll leave the EU without a deal?
Sabine Wayand was quoted as saying there is not enough time to 31.12.20 to complete a full free trade deal and we'll get the bare bones of a deal or no deal at all.
Seeing as she has run rings round our lot for the past two years or so I'd imagine her version of events is far more likely an outcome than anything coming from our bunch of incompetents.

Because leaving with no deal harms the EU too and they will want to avoid that at all costs - a deal is perfectly possible if the will is there and the UK has some leverage with which to bargain with.

Fundamentally, the EU will not allow a full free trade deal, it actually harms their own future.
To allow a member "state" to leave with a FTA and allow them to potentially negotiate some preferential deals with other countries, from the EU's perspective, would be madness and as negotiations stall, we will be drip fed the "nasty EU" lines and then drop out with "no deal" at the end of 2020. It could be sooner if/when The Tories realise that the game is up.

I think it was Barnier, who said that the UK will become a "competitor of The EU when they leave and there isn't an organisation in the world that would give a competitor a "leg up" when their own business is at risk.

Johnson may like to pretend that he has an oven ready deal but the main ingredients are still very much missing.

The oven.

The last thing the EU want is a large economy being a competitor on its doorstep - I don't buy this its all the EU fault but it takes two to tango and the EU have to be prepared to compromise too. No deal is a perceived disaster all round and we have seen with the EU nothing happens until the last minute.

I agree with your comment re. other countries wanting to leave but none of the potential leavers could harm the EU in the way we can.

The Tories plan was to eliminate the deficit and reduce the national debt, that hasn’t happened, despite moving the date it was due to happen several times.


1997 when labour came to power Debt was 43.2% of GDP.

In 2007 after 10 years of labour debt was 41.5% of GDP.

It is a myth labour were running huge budget deficits before the global financial crisis.

You have stated this before and been challenged on it before, you didn’t respond and then go on to repeat the same Tory lie.

We are not a large economy compared to the EU, USA, China etc. Why do you believe the EU are going to go out of their way to help us. They do not want to encourage others to leave by providing us with a free trade agreement.
I think you have been listening to Boris too much and have started to believe his lies. The truth is we need the EU more than they need us.

We are not talking about debt - we are talking about the deficit - i.e. the difference between government income and government spending.

The deficit in 2009, the last full year of a Labour government was £90bn - or are you saying that is untrue? - by 2009 debt as a % of GDP had started to grow it was 44% and rising it had been rising every year since 2000. It is no surprise to anyone that it fell in the first two years of the Blair government - debt as a % of GDP had been falling since the second world war it is no surprise that its low point was under the Tories under Thatcher.

Th Gov't has more than doubled the UK's debt since 2010 and the interest is now £48bn which is far more than the defence budget.

As for the myth about the EU giving us a FTA once we have left. If Wayand says we'll get a bare bones deal or no deal then that's what we'll end up with. She's been ahead of our game from the start. They've already said that if we leave without a deal the first thing they'll want to discus are fishing arrangements. Johnson has already said he'll will protect UK's fishing industry from EU fishing but how he'll react when EU fishermen start their indefinate blockade of their channel ports stopping British ferries from sailing.
I reckon he'll sell out our fishermen faster then he sold out the DUP. That's his style.

The global financial crisis was caused by the banks.
The deficit you are quoting was caused by the global financial crisis. Before this Labour had reduced the national debt as % of GDP.

Sal, you are supporting a party and leader that is too scared to face direct scrutiny. Therefore, NOTHING that he says is relevant.
He's happy to mock the opposition after their in leaders faced intense one to one grilling's but he's done a runner and is probably somewhere in Somerset with Rees-Mogg, hiding from the press.
How do you rate his chances of negotiating with Trump or the EU and China when he is proving himself to be so utterly weak and spineless.

In the short term, hiding will very likely ensure that he stays in no 10 but, at what cost to both himself and the country.

It's hard to get behind any leader that hides round the back.

It will certainly go up in flames because he suggested putting his oven ready deal in a microwave.