Jeremy Corbyn coming to Sheffield

[Blackbeard]

I imagine we can just let the franchises expire and it would cost nothing, but we would then be left with no rolling stock and would have no option but to purchase all the rolling stock from train operators.I do not know the average cost of a locomotive but I imagine it will not be cheap.

 

It seemed to have been working last year "Britain's only state-owned railway, which runs the East Coast artery between London and Scotland, made payments of almost £220m to the taxpayer last year, fuelling further anger over its impending re-privatisation. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/11085643/State-owned-train-company-returns-217m-to-taxpayers.html

[TJC1]

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21662588-what-do-economists-really-think-corbynomics-too-good-be-true

 

---------- Post added 30-08-2015 at 18:43 ----------

 

But Mr Corbyn’s prescriptions are seriously flawed. To increase investment he wants to set up a “national investment bank”, which would, under government direction, spend on roads, houses and green energy. Nothing wrong with that. But he proposes to fund it by cutting “reliefs and subsidies on offer to the corporate sector”, which he says amount to £93 billion a year, and ending tax evasion and avoidance, which he claims are worth another £120 billion a year. This cash would be enough to propel Britain to the top of the government-investment charts, with change left over to double spending on the National Health Service.

It sounds too good to be true, and it is. For starters, the £93 billion figure is a fiction. It comes from a paper which, unusually, classifies state spending on education and health as sops to corporations. And cutting some corporate welfare might actually harm investment: according to economists at HMRC, the tax agency, for every £1 spent on research-and-development tax credits, British companies boost their R&D spending by £1.53-£2.35.

The £120 billion in missing tax revenues—which is about four times the government’s own estimate—comes from a report by Tax Research, a pressure group. Even if the figure is to be believed—which requires a leap of faith, since the report does not explain its calculations fully—Mr Corbyn’s proposed remedies are wanting. Britain already has one of the smallest shadow economies in the rich world; stopping cash-in-hand payments entirely is impossible (and even if it were not, the extra tax burden would crush some of the economic activity that generates this untaxed income). The Corbyn manifesto vaguely pledges “a proper anti-avoidance rule”.

If the plan to boost investment through reform of the tax system is half-baked, another of Mr Corbyn’s ideas is dangerous. He promises “people’s quantitative easing”, a radical twist on a policy that the Bank of England has pursued since 2009. Instead of using newly created money to buy government bonds, as happens under ordinary QE, Mr Corbyn seems to want the Bank of England to use that cash for more productive purposes, by buying bonds from the national investment bank.

In the short term people’s QE might gee up economic activity without increasing the stock of government debt—currently 80% of GDP—since the Bank of England could write off the bonds it had bought. But it is a risky proposal. At present the bank looks unlikely to embark on a fresh round of QE (instead it is mulling monetary tightening). If Prime Minister Corbyn were to rely on QE to fund public investment, he might be tempted to cajole the bank into prescribing more of it. At the mercy of politicians, the bank would lose its credibility, and confidence would drain from the economy, forcing interest rates up and crimping investment—again, just the opposite of what was intended.

 

---------- Post added 30-08-2015 at 18:46 ----------

 

It's a bit more worked out than Corbyn's plan.

 

How is he going to find a spare half trillion for his train set and the power stations to run them?

 

A combo of quantative easing and missing tax revenue...under scrutiny i would like to see how he intends to bring in 120bn.

 

---------- Post added 30-08-2015 at 18:49 ----------

 

Be interesting to see how it pans out...

[ghost rider]

That is a big debt for network rail.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/583746/Network-Rail-debt-soars-38billion-as-passenger-service-misses-targets

Edited August 30, 2015 by ghost rider

[MickyA]

If there was someone appearing who was as far right wing as he is left wing then there would be anti demonstrations, for me one is just as bad as the other.

 

Didn't he snub Doncaster recently?

[taxman]

Try again. The SNP wiped out Labour, who also had an anti-austerity platform.

 

Labour have stated that their anti-austerity platform is WHY they lost so heavily and they have the numbers to back that up.

http://labourlist.org/2015/08/labour-lost-because-voters-believed-it-was-anti-austerity/

 

If you had been paying attention you would have noticed that people voted FOR cuts in the May election.

 

Labour did not have an anti austerity platform, the SNP did.....look who did best

[thorphanger]

Looking forward to him being elected as leader of the Labour Party. Which will probably end up with the Labour Party splitting from Corbyn and his cronies. There is no way Labour will ever be re-elected whilst a Leftie like Corbyn is the leader.

[blake]

well over a 1000 in Plymouth tonight, usually Lib Dem Country.

 

no it isn't. Though the now-abolished Plymouth Devonport seat was held by David Owen for both Labour and the SDP, both Plymouth seats are, and have been in the past, Tory-Labour marginals with a low Liberal vote and both exactly the kind of seats that will swing against Labour even more than they did in 2015 next time, IF Corbyn is leader and remains leader for the 2020 GE which I don't think he will be regardless of him being elected Labour leader in a couple of weeks.

[ormester101]

a labour peer advanced talks are taking place on a split corbyn is trouble

[blake]

I don't think there will be a formal split along the lines of the SDP. Corbyn's shortcomings will be so obvious, and the party will do so badly not just in the newspaper polls, but the really important ones in the shape of the elections coming up in May, that Corbyn will resign like Ian Duncan Smith, who also wasn't up to it, resigned. Maximum, two years.

 

even without his obvious shortage of talent and ability, the guy is just too old to take on a job which he has no preparation for at all. When the 2020 election comes round, he'll be older than Foot was in 1983.

[Blackbeard]

I don't think there will be a formal split along the lines of the SDP. Corbyn's shortcomings will be so obvious, and the party will do so badly not just in the newspaper polls, but the really important ones in the shape of the elections coming up in May, that Corbyn will resign like Ian Duncan Smith, who also wasn't up to it, resigned. Maximum, two years.

 

even without his obvious shortage of talent and ability, the guy is just too old to take on a job which he has no preparation for at all. When the 2020 election comes round, he'll be older than Foot was in 1983.

 

In 1940 when Churchill became PM he was about 66 he also became PM in 1951 age is just a number.