Political discussions...

OUT OF HOURS BULLY'S TRUCKSTOP BAR (INTERACTIVE)
181

The correct thing to do in any election is to vote for FOR a party, rather than “Against another you’ve been told to vote against”.
My voting record is:
SDP 1987
LibDem 1992
LibDem 1997
LibDem 2001
Conservative 2005
Libdem 2010
UKIP 2015
Conservative 2017
Conservative 2019
and likely RUK 2024.

In NONE of those elections - did my vote actually change anything.
Disillusioned? Maybe. But at least I always vote.

Statistically, I’m still a Center-Right Liberal then.
My voting Leave was the first vote in my life that went towards an “unexpected result”… Leave winning with a majority of over a million votes.
Brexit Result

It would be nice to think that there will be no voters actually complying with instructions to “Vote Labour to stop RUK”.
What I think might happen here, is Starmer wins his 20points+ majority he seems to be expecting, but the Tories will lose an extra few seats on top of that (seats where Labour are currently third or fourth in the constituency) - seats which will be picked up by RUK on the most part, with maybe a single digit number going to the Libdems.
I’m not expecting Labour to lose any seats to the Libdems/RUK at present, but watch this space.

It has always been easier for incumbents with seats to lie about those with NO seats - and be believed.
The Oxygen of Publicity - tends not to lend itself to “parties with no seats”…

182

well here in the south if something costs 15.99 we would say it cost 16 pounds. Up there where there be dragons they might say it would cost 15 pounds.

A few years ago i went on a trip with my car club to ireland. We had gone out for the evening to get dinner and found this great little pub with live music. One of the northern members had bought a round of drinks and commented on how cheap it was because it was only 20 pounds. When i went up i was charged just over 24 pounds and immediately made a fuss that i was being over charged as the other member of the group had been charged under 20 as he had said it cost him 20 pounds. It was then explained to me that northerners round down rather than up ie they do it wrong.

183

…If the Tories lost seats to RUK but not to Labour - that would create the interesting scenario where Sunak might offer Starmer a “Coalition of National Unity” - just to keep the hopes and dreams of the Uniparty/Deep State alive…

I would be chuffed to bits if RUK then as a consequence - became the official Opposition!
…For that to happen, RUK would have to win more seats than the SNP and Libdems combined, thus shutting out the possibility of a “Rainbow Coalition”…
Sunak, I suspect - would rather go into coalition with Labour (unthinkable?) rather than RUK which Labour think “cannot do a coalition with anyone else”…
I dunno about that, as I cannot speak for a party I’ve never voted FOR, but I don’t think I’ll be voting against labour like some did in 2019…
Corbyn Up Yours

184

Quote:…‘’ Anyone voting for a pig with a red rosette’'.

That is a good point and what I have been saying for ages.
My Granda was a staunch Labour man an ex miner, an engineeer, and a strong Union man.
He would turn in his grave if he saw how his beloved party has changed beyond all recognition to the shower of sh they are today.

Like my chippy analogy,… if you were a regular loyal customer because the owners made excellent f&cs you would not just carry on being a customer when it changed hands and turned to crap.

At least the Tories are consistent and have always been ’ CU Next Tuesdays’. :joy:

185

Johnson is gone for good. He got warned off. Leaving parliament - puts him beyond any further expectations of him. Coming back - puts him back in the firing line for when Putin gets the better of Ukraine, and Deep State assets get sent out to punish those world leaders that are supposed to be on-board with their (by that point) failed plans for world ■■■■■■■■■■…

It’s just as well Johnson IS gone, as I lost faith in him the moment he came out of Hospital tbf…
It was as if one of those pods had been left at his bedside whilst he was in there…

186

WTF? do min a t ion is a banned word?

187

It refers to the dodgy establishments where you personally will likely have a membership for at weekends Winseer.

188

I’d like to know the mentality of Ley-Bah voters oop narth… What is better about Keir Starmer that Corbyn didn’t have, or vice-versa come to that?

I don’t mean reasons why I don’t vote Labour, I’m after reasons why Narthernars in particular do…

I mean, not all seats in the North are like Haltemprice - are they?

189

'Quote:
‘‘Leybah voters oop narth’’
‘‘Nartheners’’ ? :flushed:

Are you having some kind of stroke Winseer??

190

I don’t pay for people to hit me though - (as Alan B’Stard would say…)

191

Inflation is already down, but so far that hasn’t been passed onto lower interest rates.
INTEREST RATES are what puts Housing in the range of ordinary workers like Us lot…
Keep the interest rates too high for too long - and we’ll all be re-possessed, which was a major part of what brought down the Tories in 1997. Five long years to wait for people to simply not vote Tory anymore… (Didn’t affect me, as I was a Libdem voter who was renting at the time…)
How does Labour win over the votes of people who’ve lost their homes, and Starmer hasn’t pledged any kind of Rent Controls that Corbyn did, but got knocked back on…?
Not ALL Tory voters to be won-over are also White Van Man with “Right to Buy” council houses!

192

Who told you that? You need some more accurate sources of information

And you believed that? :smile: Sorry but that is absolute bollox. And what do you mean by Ireland? There’s Northern Ireland and there is The Republic, with a world of difference between them.

What is far more likely is that the bartender may very well have charged your buddy one price, dependent upon his presentation at the bar, and you were charged something different for your presentation. That’s like me saying Glasgow is a friendly city, based on how the Glaswegians respond to my northern England (Geordie-ish) accent, and someone from Hampshire saying Glaswegians are unfriendly, because of how they respond to the southern accent.

193

blooming cheek i have never been to a wine bar or bistro in my life. I was brought up in a little village outside sevenoaks as conservative as you can get. infact every other shop was an antique shop at one point. There used to be three pubs. One of them did food as in sit down meals the other 2 didn’t and they were there for years. Then they changed hands and the new owners of each pub decided to do this bistro type stuff with in 6 months they had all closed.

194

There may yet be hope you, if you can eat black pudding after learning what it’s made from :smile:

195

thats for kids i want haggis

196

It is down from where it was a year ago.
It is still higher than before the current Gov was in power and is still higher than under most of the last Lab gov. United Kingdom Inflation Rate.

But remains much higher than when many took out their mortgages. United Kingdom Interest Rate.

In 1999 a house in London cost about 10 times workers salary.
Now it’s about 26 times their salary.
it is all broken down for different regions and by years etc
Housing Purchase Affordability, UK - Office for National Statistics.
As Zac will doubtless point out a Northerner may be on less wages but cheaper housing more than makes up for any regional decrease.

Ed to add…
And re housing as investment?
In most of the rest of the world, houses are places to live.

Mostly price inflation (including here) is thought of as bad. But inflating house prices means the “haves” get richer and the “have nots” find it harder to get that first foot on the rung.

Truly a bizarre situation.

197

this is more my cup of tea

but your right its cheaper up there to buy compared to down here. i have been trying to find council tax rates etc but cant seem to get anywhere

198

On topic, as I beleive Max Mosley won his court action against News of the World not becuase he wasn’t being whipped by 4 Dominatrixes, but that they had alleged it had a ‘far right’ theme to the event.

199

I’m not looking at house values, since the choice of buying or not buying based on price makes one a property speculator, rather than a would-be homeowner.

I look at the affordability of Mortgage Payments ONLY.
Because I got a good deal mortgage-wise, I get to keep my house when payments go up (because mine go up less…) and don’t skin myself alive trying to make such payments when others are being re-possessed just as selling prices are coming DOWN…

“Buy low, never sell” works for property like “Buy low, sell high” does for Stocks and shares.

Mortgage payments though?
Houses were cheap throughout the 1990’s, especially from 1994-97. The payments fell when Blair got in, even though prices continued to advance.
I now have a 155k mortgage with a payment lower than what it was when I took out the mortgage.
That lower payment - keeps my house affordable for ME.
I’m not selling, so the value of my house - is irrelevant.

Payment Trends are easier to predict than house prices, as the lenders set that trend to start with.
Right now, rates are expected to fall with a Labour government later this year, but fall slower, or remain static if there’s a hung parliament.
Rates will only rise if the Tories unexpectedly win.
The Bank of England has already made policy that they’ll “Help Labour” electorally then - but not the Tories.
It’s just a question among pollsters at “how many seats the Tories will lose” with them losing even if they only drop a handful of seats, Sunak tries to stay as PM, but gets turfed out by an immediate vote of no confidence…
I won’t be voting for Starmer unless and until he comfirms BoE policy is what I’ve just read it as.
I would imagine that many will either not believe it (voting Labour anyways) or not believe it (voting Tory anyways) with only the floating voters like myself - caring anything at all about the future direction of mortgage payments, rather than house prices then.

franglais
3 April |

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winseer:

Inflation is already down,

It is down from where it was a year ago.
It is still higher than before the current Gov was in power and is still higher than under most of the last Lab gov. United Kingdom Inflation Rate.

winseer:

but so far that hasn’t been passed onto lower interest rates.

But remains much higher than when many took out their mortgages. United Kingdom Interest Rate.

winseer:

INTEREST RATES are what puts Housing in the range of ordinary workers like Us lot…

In 1999 a house in London cost about 10 times workers salary.
Now it’s about 26 times their salary.
it is all broken down for different regions and by years etc
Housing Purchase Affordability, UK - Office for National Statistics.
As Zac will doubtless point out a Northerner may be on less wages but cheaper housing more than makes up for any regional decrease.

200

Very much so, I have long believed/been aware that our general standard of living is far higher than in other parts of the country. In the late 80’s, after a gig in Newcastle, I told a couple of fellow gig-goers (from the Bedforshire area) they were welcome to stay at my place. I was surprised at their surprise at my “Tyneside flat”, they assumed I must be wealthy and have a well paid job, until that point I hadn’t realised the gulf in home prices, my flat was (according to them) just one-seventh of the cost of something comparable in their home town.

The whole housing-as-an-investment thing isn’t limited to wealthy people, the typical homeowner I hear from believes it is a good thing that house prices are continually increasing, despite the obvious limitations that (i) their kids are being increasingly excluded from attaining what these parents have attained, and (ii) the frameshift which means that if they want to move house, any further house they wanted would be more expensive too, and they don’t actually gain anything at all.

I can’t help thinking that basic economics should be a core school subject alongside Maths and English. Understanding the fiscal concepts fundamental to our society is a lot more necessary to normal existence than calculus, algebra, or being able to define what a ‘fronted-adverbial’ is.