Friday 1 November 2019

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. 

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