Gavros 1:23 Thu Nov 27
George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Anyone seen this? Totally spangled.
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/what-on-earth-was-going-on-with-george-osborne-at-pmqs--xkniRraSOe
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Replies - Newest Posts First ( Show In Chronological Order)
Pedant
2:02 Mon Dec 1
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Phils White Gloves 8:59 Thu Nov 27
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
Quite possibly the worst Chancellor in living memory.
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Some of us are old enough to remember Anthony Barber (who we have barely finished paying for)
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worm
12:16 Mon Dec 1
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Phils White Gloves 11:37 Mon Dec 1
I heard a similar story regarding the England managers job. Might have been Graham Taylor. Not sure.
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Infidel
12:14 Mon Dec 1
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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After8
Actually I said that the value of cancelling the Olympics was to wake up the public to scale of the disaster facing us.
The following are both true: (a) that we cannot afford trinkets like the Olympics while the nation's finances are in such a catastrophic state; and (b) cancelling the Olympics will make virtually no impact on the deficit because the amount is too small.
You are confusing the two, either deliberately or because the concept is beyond you. I suspect the former.
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Phils White Gloves
11:37 Mon Dec 1
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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C&P
Time is now running out fast for Osborne. Brown used to tell a joke about how he was handed three envelopes written by a predecessor when he became chancellor, with the instruction to open them in times of crisis. The first letter says “blame your opponents”. Osborne has done that with relish, but it has not made the Conservatives any more popular. The second says “blame the statistics”. Osborne’s “we are being buffeted by the global economy ” is a variant of that. That hasn’t worked either.
Time, then, for the third. Its message? “Prepare three envelopes.”
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JGW1
10:03 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Back on topic ..... I reckon it's odds on he'd just done a line
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Hermit Road
9:10 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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"
Infidel 6:27 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
Surface
Taxpayers money is not a bottomless pit. If £9bn is diverted into regenerating Stratford (£6bn for the building work and £3bn for the absolutely essential 3 weeks of sporting contests that made it all possible) then it has to be taken from other areas of public spending.
Like hospitals and schools, defence, policing.
The question is not whether the £9bn has done a good job for the people of Stratford but whether that is the best use of limited resources."
That isn't true unless govt borrowing was capped, and it wasn't. They could borrow for the Olympics, and borrow more for the health service, education etc. you're working from the idea that they reached the limit of their pot of money, which we can obviously see that they didn't given the borrowing habits since then.
On another point, of course it is possible for govt to invest. Our country can borrow at a low rate, if it then lends that money at a higher rate then it is, by definition, an investment. Take home equity loans as an example. The government lent money to key workers to help them buy houses. In return they hold equity in those houses, when the houses are sold, the government makes a return if the value has appreciated. It's an investment that can go up or down. Meanwhile the original loan is serviced at 3.5% a year, a great interest rate for the borrower! and a profit making rate for the govt.
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After8
9:08 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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I've never made the argument that we can spend whatever we want on capital projects . Everything needs to be paid for.
The idea though that cancelling the Olympics would have protected public services is a complete nonsense because it's a one off spend.
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Infidel
8:51 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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After8
The logic of your argument is that we can spend ad infinitum on capital projects because they all one-off, not recurring spend.
In fact capital projects are funded in exactly the same way as departmental spending - by borrowing. Every capital project adds to the borrowing, increases the deficit, adds to the national debt and adds to the interest bill we pay every year to service it, currently £54bn a year under your brilliant Chancellor.
It is you who do not understand the way public finances work,not me. Just about everything the government does is spending, not investment. Just because they call it 'investment' doesn't mean it's investment. It's just a neat political word for spending, a piece of trickery.
The scale of the debt and the deficit are such today that we have no latitude -absolutely none - for trinkets like the Olympic Games and HS2. These are worthless prestige projects designed to allow the political class to look statesmanlike and important, yet they don't have the tax revenue to pay for them.
The country is bankrupt. £1.4 trillion of debt. You may think you can just monetise that and ignore it but you can't. Osborne is no better than the NewLabour shower who preceded him - an incompetent with no economics training who simply doesn't understand the scale of the problem
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Joke Whole
12:10 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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It seems like some don't really understand how bidding for government projects works in the real world.
For something like the Olympics, the original bids would have been a realistic reflection of the requirements as they were set out (they would have been a fairy story in any case - NO government "does" requirements professionally).
Those bids would all have bounced but from them a civil servant would have selected a couple of names he "likes".
A second round of bidding takes place, but this time, it's let known to the "liked" bidders that should they leave off stuff like a running track, or seats for the stadium, it's likely to pass un-noticed.
A low (completely unfeasable) bid then wins and the contract stipulates that the contractor is allowed to add (back) in any missing required items at no cost to themselves (as they were "missed" by the client).
The costs then rocket, but, to not rock the boat, the civil servant is almost certainly guaranteed fast-track promotion with a nice fat gong waiting for him when he gets to the right age/everybody's forgotten the farce.
YOU don't want it to be that way? Tough titty, matey, 'cos that's the way it works.
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Coffee
11:27 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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The Kronic 11:17 Sun Nov 30
I don't think anyone has ever said that. Perish the thought.
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The Kronic
11:17 Sun Nov 30
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 2:38
I hope this doesn't come across as being unnecessarily insolent; but has anyone ever told you you're a fucking boring cunt?
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Sven Roeder
9:13 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Think it would have to be Bird Flu to have the revolving eyes like that.
Was looking pretty comfortably numb
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After8
8:56 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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I think it looked like flu. He did look pretty odd though!
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Sven Roeder
8:54 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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In amongst all this talk of funding of the Olympics did we ever establish whether George was just hungover or otherwise chemically enhanced?
Or not enhanced by the look of him
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After8
8:50 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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" If £9bn is diverted into regenerating Stratford (£6bn for the building work and £3bn for the absolutely essential 3 weeks of sporting contests that made it all possible) then it has to be taken from other areas of public spending.
Like hospitals and schools, defence, policing."
Not exactly. It is a one off capital cost. You could say spend the $9 billion on the NHS but most health costs are yearly so it doesn't come into it. Same for policing too, once that 9 billion is used up then what?
This idea that you could cancel the olympics and then fund public services with the money as as naive as Labour spending the bankers bonus tax 5 times over and using the mansion tax to reduce the deficit and fund the NHS at the same time.
It stinks of someone being on their hobby horse because they don't like the Olympics.
You cannot govern by ideology alone.
The one part I will concede though is the public don't understand how much debt we are in and every cut is opposed by a pressure group.
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Gavros
7:34 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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The Olympics accelerated Stratford and surrounding areas by 20 years and put billions of pounds of private money into the area. To be mealy mouthed about it is just shittalking.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
6:29 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 6:27 Sat Nov 29
We can debate that all day long, but it's got fuck all to do with whether the Olympics made a profit.
I don't really see why spending on transport infrastructure, housing and urban renewal is any less worthy than the other areas you mentioned.
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Infidel
6:27 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Surface
Taxpayers money is not a bottomless pit. If £9bn is diverted into regenerating Stratford (£6bn for the building work and £3bn for the absolutely essential 3 weeks of sporting contests that made it all possible) then it has to be taken from other areas of public spending.
Like hospitals and schools, defence, policing.
The question is not whether the £9bn has done a good job for the people of Stratford but whether that is the best use of limited resources.
I would say not.
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Ditcher
5:37 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-561748/Ken-Livingstone-admits-bid-2012-Olympics-ensnare-taxpayer-billions-develop-East-End.html
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
5:20 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 2:38 Sat Nov 29
Obviously the regeneration of Stratford COULD have happened without the games. However, why anyone would come up with Stratford as a prime candidate for a 6 billion pound renovation, let alone sell it to the northern monkeys, is beyond me.
Nonetheless the 6 billion was spent on renovation, not on the games. Clearly the games were the catalyst.
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gph
4:12 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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*looks forward to Bruno Ganz playing GO in 2024*
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