Politics Thread!

[pogo]

https://twitter.com/DanHannanMEP/status ... 9924430848

Two lessons to draw from the #plebgate case.
1. Never get involved in a libel action.
2. Seriously, NEVER get involved in a libel action.

You'd think they would have learned by now, there are few upsides for politicians to winning such a case and it can be disastrous to lose.

[venusian]

Plebgate; he said it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30235009

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The outcome of the trial doesn't affect the truth.

[Dio]

By definition he didn't, and anyone who says otherwise is now being definitively libellous.

[pogo]

Suing for libel was an incredibly stupid move on his part, more even so than normal for politicians. He had already largely won; some of the police reports had been shown to be fabrications and the police disciplined for them. What words he actually used matter much less, and if he'd left it alone and just made a statement I'm sure most people would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, was anyone paying attention to Cameron's immigration announcements today? There was no indication of how much it will reduce immigration or reduce welfare bills as it won't. People don't come here to claim benefits, they come here to work, or study, or to be with their family.

It's time for him to admit that there's little he can do to limit immigration, or at least not without ruining the economy one way or another (including exiting the EU). Then he should admit that the immigration levels are a good thing – they're an indication of the health of the economy and its appeal to workers. Immigrants are overwhelmingly net contributors and have no negative impact on the economy. See e.g. the falling unemployment rate.

[Dio]

I think his plan is to try to muddle through to the election and then do just that. It's going to come bloody close to fissuring his party though, and given what he's already said he wants, which he won't get, electing the Tories looks like guaranteed exit from Europe to me.

[pogo]

I was being too kind to Cameron: some of the stuff he mentioned which isn't as eye catching as 'no benefits' is unworkable or will cost money they've previously been unwilling to spend. From here

Removing migrants from the UK after six months if they have not found work
You can't do that, or at least you'd need not just a treaty but the rewrite of one of the EU's founding principals, the free movement of people. If they insist on that they'll have to leave the EU to get it and they must know it.
Restricting the right of migrants to bring non-EU family members into the UK
Not 100% sure what this means but I suspect it means if e.g. someone in France has a non-EU wife they won't be able to come to the UK. Probably also falls foul of free movement of people as well as human rights laws.
Stopping citizens from new EU entrants working in the UK until their economies have "converged more closely".
Sort of related except it's meaningless as you can't rewrite rules for existing EU members and no new ones are joining any time soon.

Speeding up deportation of convicted criminals
That's easy to do though: just spend more money on the Border Agency and the courts so they can process people and cases more quickly. Can see this being quickly forgotten as a priority.
Longer re-entry bans for beggars and fraudsters removed from the UK
That's perfectly within their powers but I doubt it will do much. After all those people are leaving; it's the ones arriving and not leaving that inflate the headline numbers. The numbers must be quite small anyway, not least as we're so bad at deporting people.
Extra money for communities with high levels of migrants
This actually makes sense, but I wonder how much money will be available.

[Darkflame]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 71247.html
-sigh-

[merman]

£2 billion for the NHS. Sounds good, right?

Wrong. It's £700 million that was already in the NHS budget, plus £1.3 billion funded from other departments making extra savings. So not EXTRA money, the same money spread more thinly.

£15 billion for a "road revolution". Sounds good, right?

Wrong. It's not new money, it's detail of schemes already in last year's Autumn Statement re-announced. Many of which will take years to start or may not survive inquiry or future cuts.


Osborne clearly trying to bribe the electorate.

[Darkflame]

More snooping being legalised;
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaig ... ip-clauses

Essentially an extension of the DRIP, that was itself rushed though to stop the government being sued because it was already breaking EU privacy laws.

We are, of course, still technically in a state of emergency or some crap.

[Dio]

You don't understand! If we weren't in a state of emergency you'd realise why we needed to be in a state of emergency!

[pogo]

Osborne clearly trying to bribe the electorate.

Yes, as that's never happened before. The difference now with the OBR, set up by this government, they can no longer get away with pretending it's new money/paid for. It will be checked for them. So no more running up the deficit with a spending boom then pretending it's OK as the government's brought "an end to boom and bust" – the lie the last govt kept repeating until it the bust following the boom was in progress.

Which is perhaps something someone should remind Miliband and Balls. As they keep pushing stuff like this

Labour says that, because less tax is being brought in and an increase in people in low-paid jobs is pushing up the welfare and the housing benefit bills, government borrowing is higher than expected.

The resulting £116.5bn bill is the equivalent of nearly £4,000 per taxpayer, it says.

The problem is people are not stupid, they have long enough memories, and they remember who was in charge when the recession happened. How much of it was Labour's fault is open to discussion but they can hardly blame the Tories for it. The worst mistake the Tories made was seriously misjudging the time it would take for a recovery to take hold, and how bad it would get and still be in the rest of the EU. But they were hardly alone in that.

[Soluzar]

We are, of course, still technically in a state of emergency or some crap.

We always will be, I think. It makes things so much easier, and a good emergency can always be found or manufactured.

It's time for him to admit that there's little he can do to limit immigration, or at least not without ruining the economy one way or another (including exiting the EU). Then he should admit that the immigration levels are a good thing – they're an indication of the health of the economy and its appeal to workers. Immigrants are overwhelmingly net contributors and have no negative impact on the economy. See e.g. the falling unemployment rate.

You do appreciate that this would be electoral suicide for the party, though? It would probably result in an overwhelming groundswell of support for UKIP.

As little as I like Cameron, I do understand that he must cater to those who are likely to elect Conservative MPs.

[Darkflame]

Probably the biggest TTIP shit so far;
http://action.sumofus.org/a/vattenfall-lawsuit/?sub=fb

Im actually not that against nuclear power at all. But its the germans government - voted by its citizens- choice here. The idea of a private company being allowed to sue over their choice to move away from it, and worse, that lawsuit being made fault over behind closed doors by unelected people IN OTHER FUCKING COUNTRY. Is insane.

[merman]

Osborne clearly trying to bribe the electorate.

Yes, as that's never happened before. The difference now with the OBR, set up by this government, they can no longer get away with pretending it's new money/paid for. It will be checked for them. So no more running up the deficit with a spending boom then pretending it's OK as the government's brought "an end to boom and bust" – the lie the last govt kept repeating until it the bust following the boom was in progress.

Which is perhaps something someone should remind Miliband and Balls. As they keep pushing stuff like this

Labour says that, because less tax is being brought in and an increase in people in low-paid jobs is pushing up the welfare and the housing benefit bills, government borrowing is higher than expected.

The resulting £116.5bn bill is the equivalent of nearly £4,000 per taxpayer, it says.

The problem is people are not stupid, they have long enough memories, and they remember who was in charge when the recession happened. How much of it was Labour's fault is open to discussion but they can hardly blame the Tories for it. The worst mistake the Tories made was seriously misjudging the time it would take for a recovery to take hold, and how bad it would get and still be in the rest of the EU. But they were hardly alone in that.

OSBORNE HAS RUN UP MORE THAN £700 BILLION IN DEBT. The OBR can't stop him.

[pogo]

Im actually not that against nuclear power at all. But its the germans government - voted by its citizens- choice here. The idea of a private company being allowed to sue over their choice to move away from it, and worse, that lawsuit being made fault over behind closed doors by unelected people IN OTHER FUCKING COUNTRY. Is insane.

You have to look at that from the firm's point of view though. Nuclear power requires incredibly long term investment. You've got to plan the thing, get consent, raise money, actually build it, run it and decommission it. All of those takes many years, only one actually makes money and it happens after almost all your investment.

So a firm to invest in nuclear power needs guarantees. Without them it simply can't go ahead. As governments can change their minds and go off nuclear power, for political reasons as in Germany (Germany is not prone to earthquakes and tsunamis so disasters like Fukishima are simply not possible in Germany), these investments need to be financial: that the firm will get paid even if the government decides to change its energy policy.

I have little sympathy for Germany here. This does seem political, not at all green. Germany is one of the few EU countries still with a coal industry; not large but politically important and heavily subsidised. Renewables are too unreliable to replace nuclear, it will largely be replaced by fossil fuels. So their coal industry will be one of the main beneficiaries.

And Vattenfall is not the first firm to sue over this. EON and RWE have done so previously.

http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/swed ... 59723.html

The difference? Vattenfall is Swedish so this international I guess. Except Sweden and Germany are both in the EU so it's all one market and no different from EON and RWE. That Vattenfall is Swedish doesn't matter. Unless like UKIP you want to re-establish national borders to keep out foreign firms and workers. Worrying if that sort of petty nationalism is also gaining ground in Germany.