Rayvin

Well I was just referring to this one really but was writing off the cuff. The others, I assume, will all be cheaper. Commuting (which free broadband, Labour claim, will also eat into - and I suspect they're right) will be under state owned rail, and I would imagine that the same will be true for water and energy suppliers since publicly owned operations don't need to make a profit. What does that have to do with the rest of my point though? Unless your argument is about to be that it's negligible.

Having said all of this, here is your justification for it, for Labour:

Will HS2, at £70bn or whatever it is now, be as productive for the economy as free broadband? I'm doubtful. Renton may disagree.

Labour is effectively cutting taxes by providing for free, services which people would otherwise pay for. Sure it's not actually a tax cut, but it has the same effect. Everyone uses these services and would otherwise have to pay for them, so by taking that pressure away, your average families have more money. I was under the impression that Keynesianism relied heavily on your every day workers having more money to spend, and boosting GDP through their own purchasing power. I mean sure, targeted industry spending will have a big impact too. But with them pushing for Green energy, I don't see why that can't become a leading area of GDP development.

I think there's a decent argument behind it as the economy pivots more towards home working and supporting industries. Also, would not widespread investment boost GDP through Keynesian economic theory?

It doesn't sound like any areas that actually need it are going to be left behind though. The issue would appear to be the extent to which we can afford the borrowing. Honestly I think all of this needs to boost GDP and growth for it to really be sustainable. I can see the argument on the broadband one, since even the CBI have said that just a 10% increase in fibre availability should offer a 1% GDP growth, but these other areas I'm less sure about.

Sure but it does at least appear to make long term economic sense. Do you have shares in Royal Mail or something?

Even if it takes 4 times as long (market value over compensation value) and therefore takes 28 years to pay itself off, is that still not worth it? And, I might add, quicker at paying itself off than Brexit is meant to be by almost twice as much. Although I think you're perhaps overestimating the extent Labour care about the stock market. Would £150bn being wiped out really even faze it? I appreciate the precedent it sets would be alarming though.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nationalise-royal-mail-energy-water-savings-bills-national-grid-a9203636.html?fbclid=IwAR01MJMc4X7GG0UIAIGA6tNoNoRlcGDKqDkR_ttyeg-IcFoguC9WoRtpvAg From the article: The nationalisation of water, energy grids and the Royal Mail would save UK households £7.8bn a year and pay for itself within seven years, according to new academic research. A report by Greenwich University’s Public Service International Research Unit put the total cost of compensation to private sector owners at just £49.7bn – around a quarter of the widely quoted £196bn price tag calculated by the CBI last month, which also covered rail. Labour’s manifesto for the 12 December general election is expected to include commitments to take the rail network, National Grid, water and mail delivery back into public hands. PSIRU director David Hall said his estimates were based on compensating shareholders for the amount they have invested in utilities being taken into public hands, rather than paying out a “market value” price as the CBI suggested.

God, imagine the fury of the press if it was Corbyn... doesn't bear thinking about.

While I'm loathe to support him on anything, and fully appreciate this line of questioning hurts him, I don't really see what relevance this has to anything. All it's being used for is to make him look less favourable in the eyes of the the holier than thou. And yes, that's good - especially if they're prepared to ignore the plethora of other issues in which he behaves in disreputable ways. But at the same time it's a bit depressing to see that this is the line of attack, in amongst all the superior ones, that appears to be sticking.

Apparently it's a hugely popular focus group policy... I mean, I can see why it would be.

I won't re-tread the ground of others who replied but will add that from the point of view of Labour's electoral chances in isolation, yes it's damaging. But for remain in general, with the LDs offering full remain, it maximises the voter pool available across all remain flavoured parties. I honestly think its logical and so far no one has been able to challenge this particular point.

Actually I quite like the sound of that one.

They weren't running last time out either. It's not making it inevitable that Labour will lose those seats, just more difficult.

Maybe I'm wrong? Have Labour released it and I missed it?

What are the main issues in your view? They haven't released their manifesto yet so it's difficult for anyone to be totally clear on it. At my best attempt, here are the ones that sound fairly firm: On Brexit he wants the people to put it to bed by going to Europe and securing a Brexit deal that won't harm the country, and then putting it back to the people in recognition of the fact that Parliament has failed sort this out. On taxes it sounds like he intends to raise taxes on those earning more than £85k. Everyone else will be untouched, at least on income tax. Those earning over this figure will be paying 5% more than they are now which corresponds to a few hundred quid a year. But their take home pay is about £4k/month, so it's not a massive deal. On the NHS, Labour will of course put more money in which will reduce waiting times and improve care. The country can afford this and indeed would benefit from a good round of spending, as evidenced by the fact that even the Tories are claiming that they need to spend money now. It's good economics. That's all I know for certain really off the top of my head. Many other points have been raised like 4 day working weeks and so on (which I think would be better phrased as 32 hour weeks, since the data is actually that companies are just as productive with employees working 6 hours per day as they are when they work 8), but we don't know the specifics for the manifesto yet. Obviously he plans to renationalise rail and some utilities as well to stop them being owned by foreign governments and ideally to lower costs (although ewerk put up a decent criticism of this move a few pages back).

Yeah, fair enough if that's the lay of the land. But then the LDs are no more serious about stopping Brexit than Labour are. EDIT - in fact, Labour's stubborn sticking to the principle of letting the people putting this to bed would suggest they are in fact more serious than anyone else about reconciling the issue in a way that actually allows us to move forward.

But that could be avoided at least on the remain side if the LDs weren't attacking them. The question is, if this is all meant to be about stopping Brexit, why are the LDs undermining Labour's position on that front? It will win them no Tory voters.

So are we saying that Labour putting soft Brexit up against Remain, and remaining impartial, is the sole issue we have with Corbyn's policy at this point? Or do we want him to revoke the whole thing straight off? Because if it's the former, it's such a tiny issue (one that would become totally irrelevant as the vast majority of Labour MPs would immediately make up for the leadership's neutrality on the issue) that I genuinely think it's laughable.

Who said anything about the hardcore leave vote? The marginal leavers are the ones he should be taking aim at. I mean look, can you explain to me the strategic worth from a purely quantitative standpoint, of Labour and LDs fighting over the exact same set of voters in an issue that has a near 50:50 national split?

But this is just the thing though, there's a finite number of Remain purists out there, right? Presumably precisely none of them are going to vote for the Tories or Brexit Party. So why do we want Corbyn competing for their vote? They're not the ones we need to sell this to. Well they shouldn't be anyway - except that Labour is taking friendly fire from the LDs. I mean can you not see that the pool of potential voters lowers significantly if Labour step away from the middle ground on this issue? Are you thinking he should just be able to bring them with him to a remain position? I would suggest that with views as deeply entrenched on Brexit as they are, this is unlikely.

And yet even still, even fucking still, I would vote LD if I were in a seat in which it mattered. And I would wake up on election morning hoping that Swinson wasn't about to do a deal with the devil. Because that's where we are now, insanely. But let's not pretend that Labour are the only ones making this difficult.

Indeed - and based on this, seems to be prepared to accept Brexit as a price for even a few more seats. Maybe she's envisioning that Labour will take the blame for this in the long run and she will hoover up the centre in full. But again, Brexit then becomes acceptable collateral damage. Labour could be argued to be playing the same game of course, except that they have stuck to what is actually a sensible fucking position on the whole thing despite the damage it's doing to them. The LDs decided that they were the party of pure Remain, would back outright revoking A50 - something they knew they would never have to do - and appear to be prepared to sell all of that down the river because none of it is as important as winning a few seats. If Labour were being as cynical, it would have been easy enough for them to go full Remain.

Also, that comment about Labour's "nuanced" position - it's not that fucking nuanced. Go to the EU, get a non-suicidal deal, put it to the public. It's three clauses of less than 6 words each. Just how fucking stupid are the public if they can't internalise that? The concern I have with this is that Labour being painted as a non-Remain party is coming from the LDs. And specifically, their attack along those lines means that they're not just going after Labour on the basis of anti-Corbynism as a smokescreen to try and win over soft Tories. They're also going after Labour remainers - the only people who such a message actually is designed to influence. They don't need these people to vote LD to stop Brexit, they just need them to vote for whoever is most likely to win. In attacking Labour on this front, the LDs are making clear that winning seats is their primary focus, and stopping Brexit is secondary. And that is a serious fucking problem. It's not Labour's fault, it's Swinson's. And we shouldn't be too scared to just call it for what it is. If Labour's "nuanced" Brexit strategy is "too much" for your ordinary person, it's sure as shit not too much for Swinson. So why is she misrepresenting it?