Election update

It's been an interesting election so far. It looks like the Brexit and Lib Dem parties have been squeezed to the benefit of the Tory and Labour parties. It seems similar to 2017 apart from the relative trajectories of the two main parties. It seems that the Tories are picking up more of the squeezed votes than Labour, which means Jeremy Corbyn is not closing the gap.

The manifestos have all been launched. The Tories seem to be taking it easy and trying not to scare the horses. Labour on the other hand have doubled down on their 2017 profligacy and are promising vast increases in spending and tax rises. I think that this time they will be scaring a lot of people. So much so that I think it will be detrimental to the Labour position.

The debates have been disappointing. The first one, a head to head between Corbyn and Johnson was awful. The time for each answer was short and not allowed to be followed up and some of the questions were rubbish. The second debate was better in a one on one question time format, but the audience was clearly partisan in favour of Corbyn. It was appalling to see the way that Jo Swinson was treated by the very hostile audience. I may disagree with her position but it is sincerely held.

Boris Johnson has held up better than expected. So much better than Theresa May that I think the destination of this election is more like a majority Conservative Government, probably around the 40 mark at a guess. I really want to see Labour hammered, specifically so that it moves towards a more moderate position and away from Marxism. Tony Blair has said that given a choice between a centre-right or hard right party and hard left, the UK will choose one on the right. I don't believe the Tory party is particularly hard right. Most policies, like more doctors, nursers, police etc seem quite centrist to me.

In response to the many questions about austerity I do wish he would say something like:

"Thank you for that question. If I may take a few moments to explain our economic position. In 2010, the UK was running a deficit of roughly £150Bn a year. That is not fake money, it is real money, that we - as a country - have to borrow from money markets. They lend it to us, on the proviso, that we will pay it back. If they think that we won't pay it back they will charge a sky high interest rate or simply refuse to lend us the money.

That is why we needed to reduce that deficit, to give that confidence that we could get on top of our spending in order to pay our debt interest payments. Unfortunately, that did mean we had to make difficult choices. We had to make some cuts, but we were able to give some increases to the NHS and schools. I wish it were more but given the constraints it is what we had to do.

We're now borrowing much less per year, around £30Bn a year and our growing economy will help further in keeping borrowing low. It does mean that we will be able to invest more in the NHS and schools, growing them at a sensible rate, giving confidence that we have Government spending under control.

Labour want to put the squeeze on companies, those that pay us and make things for us. They will pass on those costs. But Labour also want to immediately increase the borrowing back to levels near to £150Bn a year, each and every year. Quickly the money markets will lose faith in us and then our interest rates will rise and they may stop lending to us. We would quickly find ourselves in the position that Greece and latterly Venezuela find themselves in. A contracting economy, private companies scared to invest, or worried about being nationalised at a whim, the Government taking ever more control over failure and the richest heading off shore and taxes being raised on those remaining just to keep us going.

It's called socialism.

It always starts the same, with lofty but wonderful ideals. But it always - always - ends the same. The poorest getting poorer, in fact everyone getting poorer. In Venezuela people are eating their own pets.

If Jeremy Corbyn is elected and puts his programme into effect, then I suggest everyone uses their savings from their free broadband to buy a cook book for an enticing recipe for Cat soup. Socialism does not work and never has. Do you want to be part of the latest failed experiment? No, because it ruins lives. Capitalism is not perfect but is the best system that has been devised yet. Don't let Labour wreck our wonderful country."

I could go on!

Thankfully, I don't think our country will go for the experiment. We don't go for big revolutions in this country, we tend to go for smaller steps.

Squiffy.

Twelve reasons not to vote for Corbyn (10 - 12)

10. Identity Politics

The Labour Party has been on a journey for quite a while along identity politics. It means that you are defined by a specific criteria. You're a woman. You're Gay. You're Trans. You're Black. And so you must think like this...

It works for a while, and then the conflicts between different groups start to conflict. Take all women shortlists for Labour MPs, should they be open to trans women? Should they be open men who self identify as women but have had no treatment?

The conflicts are coming out into the open now. Lesbians at Pride have been getting annoyed by Trans Women. Stonewall has just split with a new LBG Alliance (excluding trans).

Then you bring in religion. Corbyn is supposed to be a big support of gay rights, but appears on platforms with radical Muslims who things gays should be killed. In this scenario you end up with a hierarchy of minorities which starts becoming more and more unfair.

The left and far left have been taken over by identity politics. I imagine that this will cause much greater problems of a Labour Government as they have to deal with the inconsistencies as they will try to be so 'woke'.

11. Economy

The big one. They have said for a while that they will only tax the top five percent of earners more. Don't believe it. Taxation causes behavioural changes. When the top five percent decide to earn their money differently or move abroad, how should that taxation be replaced? It will need to be, so it will then be the next five percent, and so on.

The plan is to return corporation tax to pre-2010 levels. This would be the highest in the EU I believe. This will deter companies from starting up or investing, or get them to move abroad.  There will be extra taxes and the economy starts to do badly, and what do all socialist governments do in this regard? They don't go back and rethink, they double down.

The economy may do well for a little while but always tank under far left governments. This will be no different. Which takes me to the last point.

12. Socialism

It does not work. It never has. It never will. Social Democracy is a capitalist system with more intervention than a more free market approach but they all work with booms and busts, some inequality, but raising living standards.

Whenever socialism has been tried it has failed. At which point those that were at first cheer leaders, proclaiming some success in early days, turn their backs on the regime as it fails and becomes a totalitarian dictatorship. They then say it wasn't real socialism. It will then loop again.

Corbyn himself was giving plaudits to Chavez in Venezuela when it first started down the socialist path living on the spoils of it's vast oil wealth. But as the private investment dried up, after forced nationalisations, and the oil income declines, and welfare increased, it all went wrong. The latest socialist experiment failed, with a mass exodus of people, vast poverty, and political opponents in prison. Corbyn has said it's not real socialism any more.

And the cycle begins again.

Don't let the UK go down this route of being another huge experiment in socialism. It always starts with great ideals and ends with people eating their own pets.

Twelve reasons not to vote for Corbyn (7 - 9)

7. Property Rights

As well as confiscating independent schools and privatized utilities there is the possibility that an incoming Labour Government will allow tenants to forcibly buy property of landlords at a pre-determined price. If this is true it will rip apart a large part of our understanding of our society. Anything can be up for grabs. Be very afraid.

8. Unions

Another return to the pre-eighties era. There will be a repeal of some of the Thatcher reforms and a return to collective bargaining. I honestly don't believe anyone thinks that things were better before those union reforms and that our workers are so under the heal. But, but, the new Government thinks all the years of better trade relations and individual pay packet negotiations are a bad thing. DOn't be paid on your individual merits, just be average. If you don't like it, go on strike. Jeez.

9. Defence 

It is well know that Jeremy Corbyn is a pacifist (unless a Tyrant he supports has to put down his own population), and was the leader of the Stop The West War coalition. The first job as PM is to write letters to our nuclear war submarines. I can image that the letters when their captains open them when the UK have been hit would be to 'Hope for Peace'. That's if the subs still exist. Corbyn does not want them, does not believe in the deterrent, and could put the money to something else. 

Would that be conventional weapons? I doubt it. He's not one for the armed forces. I can imagine the Labour Party under Corbyn to gradually run the armed forces down. It is such a different creature to the party of Clement Attlee.

I would be genuinely concerned.

Twelve reasons not to vote for Corbyn (4 - 6)

4. World View

Jeremy Corbyn's world view is anti-western & anti-U.K. He hates our history. He hates what we stand for. Whenever there is some international disagreement in the past, he has found himself on the opposing viewpoint to the U.K.

He has supported IRA terrorists, protesting outside the Old Bailey when the Brighton Bomber was being sentenced. He has supported Hamas and Hezbollah. Appears on Iran television (or at leats used to). He supported Russia's claim that they had nothing to do with the Salisbury poisoning. No-one else in the West believed Russia.

I dread to think what would happen with Corbyn at the helm. We would be an international outcast.

5. Education

Labour want to bring in a National Education Service, a sound bite, but want to get rid of Ofsted which monitors and ensures national standards. They want local officers appointed by local councils to monitor local council supplied school services. Never mind marking your own homework. And you can forget bad teachers losing their jobs.

Out will go Academies and Free Schools, maybe even Independent schools. It will all be comprehensive schools. No choice for anyone. No specialisation. It will be straight back to the 1970's with extra. I guess grammar's will finally be gotten rid of.

As you can see, lot's of things will go, but not much will be brought in to raise standards or improve education. It's all dogma. If the independent schools go, the state will have to fund an extra £7Bn to educate those that were previously educated privately. It will help no one. It's just envy.

There will of course be free tuition in universities and grants. That will cost a lot, and is a way for the state to subsidise the better off families. It sounds paradoxical, but this year was the first where 50% of people of university age go to university. The fees have not put them off.

It really is a return to education of 45 years ago. Everything we've learned since then will be chucked.

6. Nationalizations

This is one of the more popular of the left's policy agenda. And sure, it seems sensible for the state to run some of the utilities. Why should anyone make a profit out it? Seems fair.

But. It's still a bad idea. The CBI estimate it will require £176Bn to nationalize the industries specified for the first wave (it will be a wave, it won't stop at the first companies). Who runs business better? Businessmen and Businesswomen, or civil servants? We know the answer to that. How do you get the best people to run a complicated business, you pay them... and we would not be paying enough so we would get mediocre civil servants or businessmen and women running them.

When you have a budget for the Government, what are your priorities? Say you get an extra £10Bn in tax. Where do you put that money? Apportion equally? Of course not. Put it to the highest priorities? Probably? That will be the NHS or Education. How low down the list of priorities of spending is the Royal Mail, the Thames Water Board, British Rail? Very low. What about investment? Can they borrow money, yes of course but it appear s on the Government's books. As private companies they can borrow independently from the markets when they need it.

Anyone who remembers the services from the 1970's know how bad it was. Rivers were polluted. We had regular power cuts. Trains were dirty and old. Privatisation changed all of that. Sure it can be better, but the old nationalised industries were not better. And this would cost a lot of taxpayer money, and don't believe that there will be big profits from these companies as they become starved of investment. 

Twelve reasons not to vote for Corbyn (1 - 3)

I'll do a list of ten reasons not to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

1. Brexit

We must now be on the twentieth different policy position from Labour on Brexit since 2016. They promised to respect the referendum, but have not voted in favour of any Brexit deal. Why would we believe anything they say on Brexit in the next manifesto? There's no reason to believe it. They're very split on strategy and it could change again.

They now have a ludicrous position of saying that they re-negotiate a new deal, even though the EU have said they won't re-open the deal a second time. Once they have a deal they will put it to a new referendum against remain. They do not know which side they would campaign on, but the likelihood is remain.

Firstly, there really is no guarantee that the EU will negotiate again. They have disbanded their Task Force 50 team and we are under a new commission. Secondly, what impetus is there for the EU to offer a new deal? None. There won't be any pressure from a no deal, and they know it will go to another referendum anyway with the likelihood that the Labour Government would campaign for remain. Thirdly, a Labour Government is likely to be part of a coalition and it's unlikely it will hold together through a Labour Queen's speech to ever get to renegotiation, never mind stay together. Lib Dems will not support Labour's far left policies so the Government will likely lose a no confidence vote. Fourthly, if we get to that referendum and you are a leaver - why would you believe the odds aren't unfairly stacked? 

The party is in a complete mess on Brexit. Led by a leaver, but a majority of remainer MPs and members. 

2. The Union 

If you believe in the Union with Scotland and the U.K. you know that Labour will trade away a second Independence Referendum with the SNP. It's been pretty much guaranteed. Scotland used to be a fiefdom for Labour, it no longer is. Corbyn is not that wedded to the U.K., either in Scotland or Northern Ireland. In fact he is on record as preferring a United Ireland. 

A vote for Labour with Corbyn as leader may just be the trigger for a break up of the U.K. More so than Brexit itself. 

3. Antisemitism

I don't really know what more can be said about this. The party membership is now riven with antisemitism, and it comes from the top. Corbyn has not dealt with it. How can it be that a once great party has been brought so low, that it is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for racism (a body that Labour setup in 2006!)?

I've lost times of the number of times that Labour MPs have said enough is enough, tweeted their disgust, brushed it off, and then gone forward claiming they want Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. It is shameful. I'm sure if it was something else, such as racism against the Afro-Caribbean community, Muslims, LGBTQ+ or other minorities there would be so much outrage that they wouldn't stand for it. But it seems antisemitism deserves harsh words, but no actions. It's thoroughly disgusting. 

Jewish community members are genuinely scared by the prospect of a Labour Government and are thinking of leaving the country. That says it all.