Well, I'm glad you're satisfied, that settles it.

I've viewed his tweets and a number of interviews and you'll have to try harder to convince me of he suddenly changed his views...until it was necessary to further his political career of course...a bit like his leader in fact.

Yes, you know and I know that Israel does not necessarily equal Jewish. But meanwhile in the real world of anti-Israel hatred and rhetoric, that's precisely what goes on. Not uncommon amongst student leaders and indeed the Labour party, as I'm sure you're well aware.

tigertot wrote:This Paul Johnson https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8305 ? Yes. Why?

tigertot wrote:This Paul Johnson https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8305 ? Yes. Why?

I believe that despite rubbishing Labours spending plans, he also said that Brexit was a financial disaster

If he's right on both, we ALL have a problem.

I think we've all acknowledged on here, possibly around 7,000 times, that Brexit would mean an economic hit, certainly short-term. I don't see much wrong with his article, thought the scale and duration of that economic hit is unknown.

And yes Labour's spending plans are quite rightly rubbished. They've been rubbished from pillar to post. If you have some irrational reason to disregard the views of the IFS, look elsewhere. The FT have done a good analysis for example.

BTW Paul Johnson's Twitter makes for fascinating reading.

lease define anti-semetic. I ask, because there's a huge difference between holacaust denial and calling out illegal. Iccupation in the west bank.
But I digress. Not debating is a sensible decision. There's every chance the 'tolerant' left in the room would spend their time heckling and booing, which obviously wouldn't look great.


Bullshit. Bojo led the debating society at eton.... Hes poop scared of facts, thats why hes run from the debate...... Factcheck that if you like

I don't really understand what you mean; being against Israel's illegal apartheid regime does not make one antisemitic - because Israel self-evidently isn't representative of all Jews.

I'm sure some people do conflate the two - in either direction - and say things that are unacceptable; but the vast majority of what is conveniently labelled antisemitism in the Labour party, is just criticism of Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people - and by the EHRC definition - that cannot be anti-Semitic.

Antisemitism is a vile and egregious smear that has devalued the genuine struggle of many Jews, and de-legitimised those Jews who also happen to be anti-Zionist, of which there are many.

I have no wish to trawl through his twitter feed and as you say, the size of the "hit" and it's longevity are unknown.
However, when the most ardent "leavers" are "happy" to now accept there will be a hit, it doesn't look great in the short and medium term and after that, who the hell knows -Trump and Boris may both become trigger happy in response to being "tested" by one of our many world enemies.
However, with stagnant growth and an agreed hit to come, it must all seem really worthwhile.
Chuck in a level of borrowing that the Tories have previously ridiculed the opposition over and we have all of the ingredients for something rather unpleasant and with legitimatised racism and xenophobia (from the top down), the UK (or what's left of it) should be a joy to live in.

The magic money tree that did not exist but found one billion pounds to pay off the DUP or the coalition of chaos with the same party.
They say that we would have to endure austerity so that they could write off the debt and return to surplus within four years but we would never lose our AAA rating how did those promises turn out.
It was Labour who suggested borrowing to fund various programmes whilst the rates were at record low levels. This was ridiculed by the Conservatives however surprise surprise it is now a good idea.

So You blame Thatcher for selling off the housing stock and not releasing funds for building new one and yet Labour were in power for 13 year 1997 to 2010 and their record was far worse. Here's a few facts for you to digest.....
Margaret Thatcher's government had built more council flats and houses in a single year than New Labour's managed in its entire period in office.
The official data shows that the Blair and Brown governments built 7,870 council houses (local authority tenure) over the course of 13 years. (If we don't include 2010 - the year when David Cameron became PM - this number drops to 6,510 contrast this figure with Thatcher's government, which never built fewer than 17,710 homes in a year and you can see the significant difference.
Between 1997 and 2010, of the 2.61 million homes constructed, only 0.3% were local authority tenure. Mrs Thatcher's government supervised the building of a similar number of houses (2.63 million), but 18.9% were LA or 'council' properties.
To look at it another way, New Labour built an average of 562 council houses per year. And Mrs Thatcher's Conservatives? 41,343. That said, it's also true that the number of council houses under construction declined steadily during Mrs Thatcher's era. In a nutshell, Corbyn and labour in power would be an absolute disaster for this country, of that I have absolutely no doubt. Their policies are economically insane, they would reduce this county to an economic wasteland within 3 years, destroying businesses and subsequently putting millions out of work.

Their policies are economically insane, they would reduce this county to an economic wasteland within 3 years, destroying businesses and subsequently putting millions out of work.[/quote]

A bit like Thatcher then.