Prime minister’s debate

I'm no fan of Starmer at all. But he's certainly nothing like DePfeffel. Every word that comes out of Johnsons gob is pretty much a lie and he knows it. I suspect Starmer is being advised to follow a tepid uncontroversial line to try and appeal more to the tories that may swing back to labour, but in doing so it means changing tack on pledges some years prior.

You could also argue that times change and a pledge that seems sensible one day becomes more difficult to deliver the next given external factors.

The rail one is a strange one though, given rail operators are largely under national ownership as it stands anyway.

I must admit, I can see why anyone would struggle to vote for Starmer at this moment in time, but the result at the next GE has to get rid of the tories. the ideal would be a coalition in the hope that the electoral system is changed to something where votes actually matter and it's less about blocking a certain party.

 

Fairish points Jim, but who pays for these nationalizations given that the national debt is already at 100% of GDP?

 

As a member of the Green party, why not join?

 

Labour is only considering PR because they've been wiped out by the SNP in Scotland and thus have little chance of getting a majority in Parliament. If by some freakish circumstance they did get a majority, they would simply forget about PR. We need a hung Parliament with a centre-left coalition capable of forming a government with the sole purpose of electoral reform. The alternative is a country governed forever and a day by the Tories.

 

This isn’t true.

It’s from disgraced journalist Lee Harpin.

He made false allegations about her in the Jewish Chronicle & they ended up having to apologise.

 

No doubt she'll be able to sue him for defamation if that's the case then. I'm sure there's a legal fund going unused for this somewhere.

 

She already sued the Jewish Chronicle & won damages in 2019 due to the lies in his article. Hopefully she does the same again.

 

Doesn't the suspension now reported by Lee Harpin post-date the earlier IPSO ruling?

 

We are paying for them now. Who do you think is paying for HS2 how much rolling stock have the TOC’s purchased over the last 23 years. Answer is 0 the govt buys them

franchises for rail have all expired is that’s straightforward.

For utilities. Just set up a rival company. Set the price gap at zero increase and watch them fold. Pretty easy and cost neutral.

More broadly any nationalisation is cost neutral. You make payments but obtain assets equal to those payments. Portes has done some great work on that (not that he supports nationalisation Per se)

I am a Green Party member but happy to vote for any progressive party to keep the tories out. So would happily vote LD if needed. At the moment I can’t vote for Labour even tactically as they are not a progressive party.

 

She is already on it from what I understand. Hairpin has almost single handedly bankrupted the Jewish Chronicle with his lies

 

Excellent Jimmy mate, we need a secret handshake in case we meet up at Oakwell....

 

So you don’t think telling direct lies to get elected echoes Johnson? Sorry but I do. See Andrew Neill interview where he commits to nationalisation in next lab manifesto. Would you agree if they are not he lied and that the purpose of that lie was to obtain power

 

Is it a lie if he intended to do it at the time and has now changed his mind given whats occurred since?

People are allowed to change their minds. Changing your mind isn't to cause a lie.

 

so he has just randomly changed his mind on all the fundamental pledges he made that he would not have got elected without promising? In that case he needs to go back to members for a fresh mandate as he had none. He won’t because he wouldn’t win.

surely given the energy market it is more compelling to nationalise now than it was then for example.

 

Gas and oil are done with, why nationalise them for the sake of 20 years or so?

 

She’s even dressing like Thatcher

 

I'm not saying I agree with him. I'm just saying a change of mind isn't necessarily a lie. It could be a broken promise, but unless he knew he was never going to follow through on his pledge, it isn't a lie.

 

Well say your electric bills carry on going up 156% a year for those 29 years will you feel the same. The energy supply needs nationalising maybe getting the French govt to set out prices rather than our own is a bit of an error. We don’t need to nationalise anything just set up a rival supply company and limit energy rises

 

well on that we don’t agree. I firmly believe that he deliberately lied to get elected.

 

He may well have, or he may just have changed his mind given all thats happened the last two years. But this is the problem as we've found with DePfeffel, thinking someone has lied and knowing are two very different things.