Council election results so far.......... How this is disaster for Corbyn??

[Darren_Test]

It confirms that Corybn and his ilk have a limited appeal and Labour are very much on the path to being the party of urban areas rather than being able to appeal to the wider country.

Wrong Conclusion as this election was for urban areas only anyway.

At this time, when we have had austerity lead policies for nearly a decade, and are at the point of maximum BREXIT uncertainty Labour should have been making in-roads and proving they are capable of leading the country.

Good Point

At the moment they just seem to be a glorified protest group whose only common approach is that "The West Is Wrong".

There are several upcoming factors which are going to make life harder for Labour.

and for Tories as well on BREXIT decisions.


Firstly there are boundary changes that should come into force prior to the next election. The consensus is that these give a slight advantage to the Tories.

The next election is not until 2022. We'll have exited the EU in 2019. Most of the pain will have been forgotten by then and the Tories will be able to say "We listened and we delivered".

Really...Could change in next 1 years!!

The government has got the country's finances in a much better shape, coupled with the BREXIT dividend of approximately £12B a year they are going to be able to start spending and/or cutting taxes.

Anyone bothered about country's finances ?

I expect them to start opening the money tap in the 2019 budget, which gives them plenty of time to put some money in peoples pockets to make them feel better off.

Money gap?/ You mean negative growth due to BREXIT etc.>?

[scooterscot]

The government has got the country's finances in a much better shape,

Debt more than doubled = Government has got the country's finances in much better shape =

Remind me not to use your accountant. Tories came to power in 2010 and then they go on a spending spree with Brexit, DUP, and foreign conflicts.

[tomtomagain]

Debt more than doubled = Government has got the country's finances in much better shape

Remind me not to use your accountant. Tories came to power in 2010 and then they go on a spending spree with Brexit, DUP, and foreign conflicts.

The debt isn't really the issue. It's the deficit, the difference between what you spend and what you take in, that is the problem. And they've brought that down substantially.

The UK debt is relatively high at 88% of GDP for peace-time but it's not particularly out of line with other countries.

France's debt to GDP is 96%, Germany's 68%, Italy 132%, Japan's is 240%, Spain at 99%, Greece 180%. The EU average is 83%.

Governments are not people. Obviously. They are essentially immortal and can manage a debt over many decades. It took nearly 100 years to pay off World War I.

They also have lots of other mechanisms available if debt becomes an issue. Raising taxes or simply creating new money.

[tomtomagain]

Wrong Conclusion as this election was for urban areas only anyway.

True. And if there had been a wider election covering rural areas then we could well have seen an Tory increase. It was certainly within the margins.

Really...Could change in next 1 years!!

I dont' see it. UK governments are pretty stable. They tend to see out their term. I don't think the Tories would want to go to the polls now, there would need to be a complete collapse and they'd have to lose a no-confidence vote.

Anyone bothered about country's finances ?

Only Scooter. Don't think the person-in-the-street is overly bothered. However, they've got plenty of room to go on an good old-fashioned spending spree in the 2 - 3 years leading up to the next election.

Put some cash back in the pockets of the voters.

What would you do if you were them? Having spent a decade and all your political capital keep the spending restraints on and run the risk of the Marxist Labour party getting in and then pissing it all up a wall renationalising the Post Office?

Or claim BREXIT success ( whatever the outcome ) and make a few large gestures spending the "BREXIT Dividend" ( couple hundred mill a week to the NHS, stick up the minimum wage, raise the tax-free threshold and give teachers a payrise?

[Waldorf]

Debt more than doubled = Government has got the country's finances in much better shape =

Remind me not to use your accountant. Tories came to power in 2010 and then they go on a spending spree with Brexit, DUP, and foreign conflicts.

An interesting graph, you will note that when Labour gained power in 1997, the economy was in great shape with government debt on a downward trajectory as a percentage of GDP, when the Tories again had to take over and sort the mess out government debt was on a steep upward trajectory, though they managed to flatten the curve out somewhat.

Brexit, the DUP & conflicts can hardly be described as a spending spree, these have cost hardly anything, perhaps £2-3 billion, when compared to annual spending of nearly £800 billion.

It is a simple fact that EVERY Labour government has run out of money and the Tories have to clean up their mess.

[Waldorf]

Council Seats
----------------
Labour - Up 77 (2350)
Con - Down 33 (1332)
Lib - Up 75 (536)

Council Controls
-------------------
Labour - Same (74)
Con - Down 2 (46)
Lib - Up 4 (09)


How could our independent media and Labour (friends of Israel) spins this as disaster for Jeremy Corbyn and trumping victory for the PM...??

Many of the elections were in areas traditionally favourable for Labour, if you stripped out the London results the picture is even poorer for Labour.

For an opposition party, at this stage they should be making gains in the hundreds of seats, the fact that they didn’t shows that perhaps we have reached peak Corbyn, I hope so anyway.

Labour still has a strong brand, many millions vote because they and their families always have but the more we see of Corbyn and the grim Gang of Four (Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell & Thornberry) the greater that this support will be chipped away.

It is frightening that so many still voted for the largest Marxist, anti Semitic party in Europe.

[scooterscot]

The debt isn't really the issue. It's the deficit, the difference between what you spend and what you take in, that is the problem. And they've brought that down substantially.

The UK debt is relatively high at 88% of GDP for peace-time but it's not particularly out of line with other countries.

France's debt to GDP is 96%, Germany's 68%, Italy 132%, Japan's is 240%, Spain at 99%, Greece 180%. The EU average is 83%.

Governments are not people. Obviously. They are essentially immortal and can manage a debt over many decades. It took nearly 100 years to pay off World War I.

They also have lots of other mechanisms available if debt becomes an issue. Raising taxes or simply creating new money.

To quote wiki:

"As of Q1 (the first quarter of) 2015, UK government debt amounted to £1.56 trillion, or 81.58% of total GDP, at which time the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £43 billion (which is roughly 3% of GDP or 8% of UK government tax income)."

Do you know who own's UK debt? Do you have any conception what will happen when the interest on that debt increases?

Italy has almost 10 times as much of the UK gold reserves, despite being a much smaller economy, they could cancel out most of their debt on a whim. Comparing UK debt with other countries is futile without considering their financial position.

[scooterscot]

Brexit, the DUP & conflicts can hardly be described as a spending spree, these have cost hardly anything, perhaps £2-3 billion, when compared to annual spending of nearly £800 billion.
.

He said the 'B' word!!! Admin get in here!!

'B' has lost UK economy £300m per week since EU referendum result, analysis finds

So actually £30 billion rather than £2-3b. Do you work for Diane Abbott?

[tomtomagain]

Do you know who own's UK debt? Do you have any conception what will happen when the interest on that debt increases?

Italy has almost 10 times as much of the UK gold reserves, despite being a much smaller economy, they could cancel out most of their debt on a whim. Comparing UK debt with other countries is futile without considering their financial position.

The interest of debt does not increase. Gilts are sold at a fixed interest rate over a time set time period. 5, 10, 15 years. A 30 year UK gilt has a coupon of 1.5% ( current yield on the open market is 1.82% ). The UK government borrowed that money at a rate of 1.5% for 30 years. Not bad if you can get it. The UK Debt Management Office has been locking in 1 - 2% rates on a large proportion of UK Government debt over the last decade.


Sovereign Governments never run out of money. They control the money supply and can create additional money at zero cost.

They can appropriate private citizens wealth if required.

They are immortal, if the country does die, it's currency simply evaporates, ask the bondholders of pre-communist Russian debt what happened to their IOU's.

The government can pay down the debt ( or let inflation erode it ) over many decades. It can choose to run policies to increase inflation. Or it can choose to reduce spending ( picking the easy targets of course. The overseas aid budget for one ).

And if it all gets too much then a country can simply replace its current currency with a new one.

Government debt is not the same as a private individuals debt and should not be seen as such.


Anyway .... we're getting away from my original point, can't really be bothered with a discussion around government budgets, the original point was that HMG has plenty of scope to have a pre-election splurge, and could quite easily justify spending the "BREXIT Dividend" in years 2019, 20, 21 in time for next election.

.... Whether or not there is a "BREXIT Dividend" is of course completely irrelevant. That's just politics as normal.

[OwlHoot]

Governments are not people. Obviously. They are essentially immortal and can manage a debt over many decades. It took nearly 100 years to pay off World War I.

They also have lots of other mechanisms available if debt becomes an issue. Raising taxes or simply creating new money.

Spot on, and as I've often pointed out here, a large National Debt helps ensure our freedoms, in many ways, generally by curbing government's ability to interfere with private life and splash out, however benevolent their intent, on projects that should be done by private enterprise.

In the UK over the last thousand years or so, starting from a time when a solvent king's power was literally absolute and unshakeable, every increase in personal freedom has come when the sovereign has been skint!

People who obsess over the national debt are childishly and naively equating it with private debt, which is a different thing entirely.

In short, private debt bad, national debt good!