General election

Quoted from grimsby pete

Then loses all his brownie points this morning,

On the radio announcing a new policy but could not say how much it would cost,

Typical Corbyn one step forward two steps back.

It's terrible isn't it? Can you imagine if a party had an entire manifesto that wasn't costed? I'm sure you'd pick fault with it wouldn't you?

And surely, if one of the parties hadn't bothered to even put rudamentary estimates of costs to their manifesto, then the media would treat any mention of it with complete disdain? Especially if the party in question had got their previous costings hopelessly wrong for their previous 7 years in power, missing every one of their targets by a country mile. Now, that would be something the media would certainly have to take seriously. Or maybe not.

Forecasting is difficult - it's all pretty much guesswork and nobody can see into the future which is why everyone gets it wrong to some degree or other, often massively so. Heck, the IFS does some good work attempting to cost policies out but they don't even approach accuracy because they simply don't consider the macroeconomic side of things. Therefore, when they say something will 'cost' this to achieve, they don't consider the potential benefits to the economy coming out of the other end of the process.

With the current situation, I'm sure that even supporters of right-wing parties can see the inequity in what is occurring. If the Labour party had launched a manifesto full of hand-waving 'aspirations' they'd have have been laughed off the airwaves but the Tories are somehow allowed to do the exact same thing with barely question. Shockingly inept politics from the Tories, but perhaps they know the game is so rigged in their favour that they don't want to risk saying anything concrete - just look at their social care funding plan which has already seen a 180 degree turn.

Still can't believe that the Tories are almost certain to win the election based on a campaign based around personality politics, when their leader doesn't seem to have one, as well as meaningless soundbytes - "No deal is better than a bad deal". FFS - that doesn't even make any sense! Utterly inane.

Quoted from Maringer

Still can't believe that the Tories are almost certain to win the election based on a campaign based around personality politics, when their leader doesn't seem to have one, as well as meaningless soundbytes - "No deal is better than a bad deal". FFS - that doesn't even make any sense! Utterly inane.

Its called bluff mate, if you go trying to get a good deal but let them know you will walk if you can not agree you are more likely to get a good deal,

If we did walk what would Germany do if we did not buy any of their cars ?

We will get a good deal but it will be a good deal for all parties the EU  want a deal as much as we do,

Too many doom mongers on here.

That's rubbish though. You can't bluff with someone who doesn't need a deal as badly as you do.

And we would still buy German cars because we don't produce any ourselves.

No Tory PM is better than a bad one.

Quoted from mariner91

And we would still buy German cars because we don't produce any ourselves.

Not if we do not have a trade deal that's why we will get one,

The other option could be the German firms build their cars in our country,

Creating thousands of jobs  

Quoted from LH

No Tory PM is better than a bad one.

You could say that about all parties depending on who you favour.

Quoted from mariner91

That's rubbish though. You can't bluff with someone who doesn't need a deal as badly as you do.

We buy far more from them than they do from us ,

So they need a deal more than we do.

No. The Germans benefit immensely from their membership of the EU. If it were to collapse, they would be much worse off than they are now. It is in their best interests to make sure that we end up with a settlement much worse than EU membership - otherwise, what's the point in being in the EU?

Added to this, it is likely that Frankfurt will be vying to host the financial institutions which will leave the UK once we're out of the EU so that's theoretically a potential benefit for them - though the way these institutions have shafted us since 2007 makes the benefit debatable!

Similarly, France benefit massively from membership of the EU so they won't be looking to make any deals with us (even though Macron is decidedly neoliberal in bent).

When the two biggest players have absolutely no reason to give you any sort of a deal, it seems bizarre to think that we somehow hold the whip hand. If we suffer badly from Brexit and they suffer a little, that's more preferable to them than if they were to suffer much worse from an EU breakup.

As for May's imagined strength in negotiations, where does this come from? She was a hopeless Home Secretary - here's an article from the Daily Telegraph about this which was pulled during the leadership campaign:

https://order-order.com/2016/07/02/read-full-article-pulled-telegraph-pressure-may-campaign/

She's been a hopeless PM thus far, is running a hopeless campaign with a hopeless manifesto - she folded like a pack of cards at the first sign of pressure when the ill thought out 'dementia tax' was pilloried by the likes of the Daily Heil and the usual Tory media cheerleaders. 'Strong and Stable', my bottom. She's badmouthing the EU at every opportunity which isn't exactly going to help any sort of a rapport which is what is required for difficult negotiations to be any sort of success. The sole Tory electioneering tactic has become another 'Project Fear' which was so denigrated by the brexiteers.

The Empress has no clothes, but will enough people notice this absolutely obvious fact? Unfortunately not.

Of course, it will mainly be down to the usual factors that enough of the young don't vote whereas most pensioners do. As with most right-wing parties around the world, the Tories have done their best to disenfranchise those who won't vote for them. This is from last year, but it was around 800,000 knocked off the electoral roll back then:

http://www.independent.co.uk/n.....-rolls-a6845796.html

What are the chances of the Tories ever changing voter registration in a way which would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of pensioners, I wonder? Yep, pretty much zero.