Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Usually those who don't/won't work for a living.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Can you actually provide an example of a country that's massaging their stats or as always is it mere conjecture on your part in your perpetual denial that the Conservative Party can possibly do anything wrong?

Can you actually quantify your claims that "more generous" payouts would make the economy worse? Fundamentally payments are there to support what was a functioning economy prior to the pandemic as a stop gap.

The alternative you propose is to throw people and businesses on the scrapheap. I wonder where those people end up? Universal Credit. Who pays? Government.

I'd be grateful if you could provide any coherent economic analysis that supports your claim. Even the great bastion of capitalism - the USA - is throwing $2trn at Covid relief. So there has to be an evidence base for it, unlike your simplistic Tories good / Labour bad union flag waving opinion pieces

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Doubtful he will.

It's important to note that I don't think there are any right answers here. If you lock down and contact trace, you run the risk of company failures and economic problems, and also have to massively invade people's privacy.

If you don't lock down, you run the risk of people dying (which may also create economic problems, if enough people die).

The countries that appear to have dealt with this the best are those that locked down early, and had efficient testing and tracing procedures. If you lock down early, you may still get business failures, but they will be minimised.

The efficient test and trace requires that people give up some privacy. South Korea's test and trace system relies on the government getting access to the population's financial records (they get a list of where anyone who has had a positive COVID test has used any credit or debit cards they have), people's phone location data. I can't see our government ever doing this, because while I don't know how much the South Koreans trust their government, our government has already shown it has links to people who would mine that kind of data for profit, so people don't trust them.

By locking down late, the lockdown is going to last longer and be more widespread, so will affect many more businesses for longer. Those businesses will also usually pay taxes, so there is a reduced income for the government. Locking down late also means there are many thousands more people to treat. While most people are not affected much by COVID, an increased number of COVID sufferers means increased treatment costs, and an increase in benefits.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

The stats come from PHE, they have nothing to do with the Conservative Party (or any party).
Strange how you are happy to take digs at them by complaining that others are not. :dozey:

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Stats get defined by Government and I've accepted the challenges and imperfections in any method - hence the difference between the PHE and ONS methodology.

That said - my only point here - was for Old Boy to inform us what other countries are obviously massaging theirs as he claims.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to point out where other posters are simply sycophantically following a party line. Especially when they pull out claims about other parties, or other countries, that are completely unfounded as OB frequently does.

If you want to rename the thread "Straw man hypothetical Starmer policies for Tories to bat down" then I'll take the hint.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Im more likely to rename "jfmans argumentative topic because he thinks hes always right and everyone else is always wrong." :)

In fact, I could then merge about 6 other topics into it. :spin:

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Touché.

At least leave the Coronavirus one intact I quite enjoy battering right wing idiocy around there. The rest I'm indifferent to. Starmer is rubbish - he's just not rubbish for the imaginary reasons that Old Boy pulls out of thin air in here.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Everything is as expected then. :D

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

No point coming onto a forum to be agreed with all the time or to agree with others all the time. It would be boring. You won't develop your own arguments or understand their flaws.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Indeed. That’s what Twitter is for. :D

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

Looks like "Wallpapergate" doesn't gain any traction with voters concerned with more important matters like Covid and jobs.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

A shame, because while people are focusing on how much was spent, the focus should really be on how the it was funded - that's the real issue, and that is what is being obfuscated.

Re: Sir Keir Starmer elected as new Labour leader
 

The issue is corruption not wallpaper. A successful country needs to be free of corruption in order to prosper and to create jobs.