Vocal Voices

He and John McDonnell have outlined plans for the economy, and they do not seem to have been taken too badly.

There is not much detail, as yet, but the outlines so far come to this:

* Build 100,000 new council houses every year for the life of the parliament
* Set up a National Investment Bank
* Work with the private sector to make business profitable for all
* Invest in high-skilled, high-value and secure jobs
* Give councils the power to limit rent increases in the private rental sector

There was also some stuff about reducing the UK's carbon footprint; and we already know they are in favour of not renewing rail franchises once they run out.

I know many will not see these things as the way forwards, but many left-leaning people will think (some of) them well worth pursuing. Even some in the centre, who were expecting a lurch to the far(ish) left, might just stop and listen.

It is not as though the Tories are a much loved and united party. The time when they looked a nailed on cert to win the next election outright have long gone.

100,000 houses, no problem with that. BUT, where is the law to stop them from being sold off 3 years later to fund council's spending??? In Scotland they have gone so mad about "right to buy" that houses are having to be locked up in private public partnerships to keep houses in the hands of the Council and for the right people.

A _New_ national savings bank. Well, I wonder where they got that idea from???

Oh and now we're going to work with the _Private_ sector to make business _profitable_for all.

Really? I did a quick spreadsheet on Tesco. I took the average wage and applied it to the number of employees they have. It came out to more than their Turnover by several times If I recall correctly. Let alone Profit.

People already gain massively from business. They have jobs and are paid wages. UK wages are some of the highest in the world. What does Corbyn want to do? Make it even more expensive for companies to do business.

When will Labour wake up and realise we live in a global economy with a global market? They're for the EU aren't they? Well reality is that Eastern Europe gets about 25% of UK wages and produces comparable products..... Me? I'd just move my business to where people expect to have to make their home, wealth and retirement.

Invest in high skilled, high value and secure jobs? What have these two been smoking. I work in a highly skilled area. For every one of me there are 100 Indians with two degrees and half the price. There is NO security and I have to run just to stand still. Also Highly Skilled? So what about the 50% of kids who leave school who are _never_ going to be a highly skilled worker so long as they have a hole in their backside???? Where is their job security? Value? Worth? I know this very well. I've just been inside the guts of my motorcycle because it's too old to be worth paying someone a fortune to fix it. It's classified as a medium skilled job. Yet it is certainly not something everyone can do. I just happen to have a genetic trait which allows me to "see" mechanical things like some people see numbers and others see words. In the Army I worked with guys I wouldn't let loose with a toothbrush repairing and maintaining Tank Transporters carrying 60 Tonne tanks...

What about these poor SOB's jobs? Aren't they of value and worth protecting? Let me give you an example which it real word. Cost for a main dealer in London to repair your car is between £100 and £150 per hour, depending on the brand. Regardless of who works on it. Yet I doubt if any of the mechanics get more than £25 per hour.

At our home town in France, you pay €38 to €45 per hour and you get billed based up on whether the mechanic is an apprentice, T1, 2 or 3.

Just how much more does Corbyn want us to pay? Because you can be totally sure that the prices are not going down...

As for giving councils the power to limit rent prices??? If anyone actually has any experience with that, they'll know why I am sneering at the idiocy of it. Most of the Buy to Let who are going to get the shock of their lives in 2-3 years when interest rates hit 5% are going to go under and lose their properties, flooding the market with overprices properties which are empty and any organised groups who get hit will simply re-classify to office space and tell the council where to stick it.

That's going to _really_ help those who need accommodation. Add 100,000 and take half a million out of the market each year.

This sounds about as good as Gordon Brown on a budget speech. "We will only borrow to invest". Yeah he only forgot to say what he was investing in. Giving it away....

What annoys me most about all of this is the casual acceptance of the press that this makes some kind of common sense because it's all populist sound bytes.

Is my response cutting? I certainly hope so because I truly believe this kind of populist drivel deserves the vitriol I'm pouring on it. Is it Bitter? Hell No. Nothing Corbyn does will impact me as I'm already international. If he totally screws the UK up again I don't have to live with it.

I'm just sick and tired of listening to the same old pre WWII retread BS handed out as if it will just work.

When at least 30% of people in the UK were living in single glazed homes struggling to feed their families and heat them at the same time by buying enough coal to burn in the single grate they had in the home, this stuff was absolutely critical to the welfare of the country and the sharing of the circa 85% of the wealth which was in the hands of a minority of the population.

In this you don't get a "do over", once you've shared it out, created the DSS, set basic levels of support, put two or three flat screen TV's and multiple mobile phones, sky packages, internet, etc, into every home; you don't get to just do it all over again because you want to win an election.

What you do is totally wreck the economy you created in the first place.

Of course nobody expected me to say anything else did they???

Suff, I do not disagree with most of what you are saying, but the point I am making is that these policy soundbites are not for the likes of those of us who would analyse them, they are for the herd.

They are still many people out there who bought into the Blair Project. The reason they turned away was because of Brown. He wasn't liked as a politician or as a person, but they did not go Conservative, they turned to the LibDems - the voters still had a social conscience.

Then along came Ed; another disaster. Seen as the back-stabber of his brother he was never liked. He was clumsy, awkward, unable to talk without a script and to cap it all he was the son of a Marxist playing Champagne Socialist. Yet still the Tories could only get a marginal working majority.

Now we have the Tories who have reincarnated themselves under Cameron and Osborne as "the nasty party" in the minds of many of the non-committed as well as the left. The outlook, as I said before, is that the Tories are not now the nailed on certs for the next election they once were.

Yes I know. All the wrong reasons for believing a script which won't work and will only break the country all over again....

I'll rest my final judgement until the next male sexual organ length measuring competition.... Oh, sorry, Election...