OV9

The Labour MPs have also changed mostly to Corbyn supporters whereas before when he kept being challenged there were still many members of from Blair’s era.

ZedLeg wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:44 pm

Zonda_ wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:39 pm I wonder how long Labour would keep Corbyn as PM if he did get in.

I don't think they'd have a choice, opponents have been unsuccessful so far and an election win would be seen as an endorsement. I'd expect there to be a similar situation to what's happening now in the tories.

The momentum types would consolidate behind him but the more centre, new labour types would drag their heels and they'd struggle to get anything from their more left wing ideas done.

You can do what you want when you're in opposition because you have less chance of getting you consider your well thought out, considered policy proposal implemented - particularly if you think it's more likely to be implemented by crossing the floor, etc. As you say, what happened with the Tories.

If Labour did get into power, I can see them being forced by just the realities of politics to adjust their tubthumping position.

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:05 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 11:56 am Knock yourself out: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/201 ... AXAJ-_SGS4

REV, I know you've gone a bit evangelical about this blog post. I finally got around to reading it and looking at the data.

From the post:

I am though, of course, aware though that the Tories claim that they've only had to borrow in recent years because of the mess Labour made in 2008. To address this issue I then re-performed the calculations taking all the years after the Global Financial Crisis out of account, leaving just 62 year of data to consider.

The 2022 data only applies to the first section in the post. Firstly he excluded data post 2008 crisis, then he adjusts for inflation.

Mito Man wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:46 pm The Labour MPs have also changed mostly to Corbyn supporters whereas before when he kept being challenged there were still many members of from Blair’s era.

There still are plenty of the former Blair era - it's just they give more of a shit about being in a position of relative power than quitting the party on principle. If they'd fvcked off en masse and created a new centrist party (a la New Labour) then we might be in a very different position by now.

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 4:29 pm

Mito Man wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:46 pm The Labour MPs have also changed mostly to Corbyn supporters whereas before when he kept being challenged there were still many members of from Blair’s era.

There still are plenty of the former Blair era - it's just they give more of a shit about being in a position of relative power than quitting the party on principle. If they'd fvcked off en masse and created a new centrist party (a la New Labour) then we might be in a very different position by now.

I dunno, I really think some people will literally tick the box next to the name of the same party they've always voted no matter what. In many cases for no other reason than it's who their parents voted for and told them was the best party.

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:53 pm The 2022 data only applies to the first section in the post. Firstly he excluded data post 2008 crisis, then he adjusts for inflation.

Nope. All the tables that total 76 years - I count five of them plus the majority of the final table - include the forecast and the crisis.

1946/7 to 2021/2 = 76 years.

His "Percentage of national debt since 1946" thing is a bit misleading... he's not showing the percentage of the debt as it stands right now as you might think, he's showing the the percentage of the total of all new borrowings, i.e. ignoring repayments, which he then erroneously calls "net borrowing" to come up with the 67.2% that I assume is the basis for the headline.

I'm not sure how he got to his repayments numbers. I need to look at that a bit more.

The last line of his final table has 18.9 vs. 19.9 as the average borrowing per year at 2016 prices excluding The Crisis. I'd regard those as the real core of the argument and there's only about 5% difference. Nowhere near as clear-cut as the headline implies.

And bear in mind that just one year of what Corbyn is proposing at the moment (in addition to the 30-40 Bn of borrowing that's probably needed anyway) will shift the balance substantially back to Labour being the ones that run up debt. Put Corbyn's plans into the model for 2019-2022 instead of the budget he's assumed and see what the answer looks like then !

I've spent a large amount of my life analysing financial models and have ended up with a kind of sixth sense for when something's not quite right. This reeks of having an agenda behind it.

Also - watching the Neil / Corbyn interview, I was highly amused to hear Corbyn say that they don't need to borrow money to re-nationalise, they just issue bonds

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:01 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:53 pm The 2022 data only applies to the first section in the post. Firstly he excluded data post 2008 crisis, then he adjusts for inflation.

I'd regard those as the real core of the argument and there's only about 5% difference.

I’d also consider this to be the core of the argument. 5% is negligible and totally undoes the whole Labour spend whilst the Tories are frugal.

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:08 pm I’d also consider this to be the core of the argument. 5% is negligible and totally undoes the whole Labour spend whilst the Tories are frugal.

It also rather undermines the eye-catching headline of that blog. Maybe it should be more like "Labour & Conservative both create about the same amount of debt really"

So - how about we call it quits on the historical data and just look at the proposals being put forward for the general election ? How's that going to affect borrowing & national debt ?

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:22 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:08 pm I’d also consider this to be the core of the argument. 5% is negligible and totally undoes the whole Labour spend whilst the Tories are frugal.

It also rather undermines the eye-catching headline of that blog. Maybe it should be more like "Labour & Conservative both create about the same amount of debt really"

So - how about we call it quits on the historical data and just look at the proposals being put forward for the general election ? How's that going to affect borrowing & national debt ?

The headline was never my argument, my argument was that there’s very little difference economically between the two parties, which you’ve agreed is the conclusion shown by the data.

In terms of how future spending plans would impact borrowing and national debt, if you have some good independent analysis I’d be happy to read it.

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:27 pm The headline was never my argument...

You've been posting that blog it all over the place whenever someone claimed that Labour borrow a lot and Conservatives are frugal ! AFAIK you never followed it up with "...but this blog is misleading, actually Labour & Conservatives are about the same". Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:27 pm In terms of how future spending plans would impact borrowing and national debt, if you have some good independent analysis I’d be happy to read it.

Nothing's independent though.

Corbyn says he'll re-nationalise pretty much everything. It doesn't need "independent analysis" to realise that's a mind-boggling amount of debt.


[*] Unless like him, you don't think Government Bonds are debt.

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:48 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:27 pm In terms of how future spending plans would impact borrowing and national debt, if you have some good independent analysis I’d be happy to read it.

Nothing's independent though.

Corbyn says he'll re-nationalise pretty much everything. It doesn't need "independent analysis" to realise that's a mind-boggling amount of debt.


[*] Unless like him, you don't think Government Bonds are debt.

If you have analysis to share, I’ll read it. I’m not at all interested in throwaway opinions. Or is that the kind of thing that flies in professional financial analysis?

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:45 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:27 pm The headline was never my argument...

You've been posting that blog it all over the place whenever someone claimed that Labour borrow a lot and Conservatives are frugal ! AFAIK you never followed it up with "...but this blog is misleading, actually Labour & Conservatives are about the same". Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

From when I posted that link on Facebook:

“I’ve always bought into the concept that the Conservatives are the economically safe party and that Labour are more profligate with our tax money, running up higher deficits etc. I’ve simply never questioned it, I’ve just accepted it as true.

But then I read an analysis of deficits and the national debt here:

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/201 ... onal-debt/

And it turns out that this stereotype simply isn’t true. In reality, Labour borrow less in real terms, pay debt off more often, and pay of more debt than the Conservatives. But the really surprising thing for me was that the figures are actually extremely close and that there isn’t a major difference either way.”

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:56 pm If you have analysis to share, I’ll read it. I’m not at all interested in throwaway opinions. Or is that the kind of thing that flies in professional financial analysis?

You're just on the wind-up now

Re-nationalising stuff needs a vast amount of money. That money's not just sitting in the bank waiting to get out; it means borrowing. Are you suggesting it doesn't ??

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:48 pm [*] Unless like him, you don't think Government Bonds are debt.

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:26 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:56 pm If you have analysis to share, I’ll read it. I’m not at all interested in throwaway opinions. Or is that the kind of thing that flies in professional financial analysis?

You're just on the wind-up now

Re-nationalising stuff needs a vast amount of money. That money's not just sitting in the bank waiting to get out; it means borrowing. Are you suggesting it doesn't ??

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:48 pm [*] Unless like him, you don't think Government Bonds are debt.

No, but I’m interested in a full analysis of the manifesto as a whole. You know better than I do that one-off and exceptional investments are accounted for differently to the day to day budget. I also want to see the analysis on the consequences of the nationalisation. The only analysis I’ve seen that uses anything like actual economics, rather than just saying “it’s a bad idea”, was by a rabid Labour supporting think tank that made suggestions that even Boris would think twice about printing on the side of a bus.

It’s not as one dimensional as “it big number, it bad”.

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:31 pm No, but I’m interested in a full analysis of the manifesto as a whole.

I also want to see the analysis on the consequences of the nationalisation.

You're resorting to Internet 101 level arguing now - insisting on unnecessary detail to deflect attention from the point at hand.

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 11:06 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:31 pm No, but I’m interested in a full analysis of the manifesto as a whole.

I also want to see the analysis on the consequences of the nationalisation.

You're resorting to Internet 101 level arguing now - insisting on unnecessary detail to deflect attention from the point at hand.

No, you’re just trying to make a one dimensional argument. Real life isn’t like that. I don’t think wanting to understand the likely return on investment is unnecessary detail unless you’re an internet retard trying to score imaginary points in an argument. I would have thought that financial analysis would consider ROI to be relatively important. Maybe I’m wrong?

“Hey guys, I’ve looked at your business plan and it says here that you’re going to spend £1m. This is a terrible idea”

“Yes, but we’ll get £20m back as a result”

“Unnecessary detail. Spending £1m is bad”

“Are there any other analysts we can talk to?”

To be quite frank - the business and financial advisory analogy above is bunk and very much back to front versus how this works in real life.

If you rock up with a plan to incur significant extra leverage to your business, whoever is providing that capital will want to see YOUR plan for the return profile and YOUR base case model for how this will plan out and, if you have no experience in the relevant sector (which none of the shadow cabinet do), independent commercial reports from a specialist in that sector. Otherwise they’ll quite simply walk away. Same applies for any equity investor.

Financial advisory is the same - they don’t do your work for you. You present a plan and then they will analyse it and look for holes and/or ways you could improve.

The nub of what I’m saying here is that if your plan is to incur vast additional borrowings then you best have an independent analysis by an industry expert showing what your return profile is.

As far as I’m aware, Labour has no such independent analysis as to the outcome of their nationalisation plans. They have produced costing in their ‘grey book’ which say where they’ll raise additional money (which bodies such as the IFS have called implausible in any event), but not the amount of profit they think they’ll generate, the capital they’ll need to invest over the near and long term to sustain those nationalised businesses and how long that debt will take the be paid down out of those cash flows. It’s 37 pages in total and I can’t see that it references their nationalisation plans in any detail at all - a complete joke.

In the absence of anyone being able to show me that analysis that it’s a viable proposition, I as a notional investor in ‘UK plc’, will go with someone else’s plan to run the country and the daft Marxists can crawl back down whichever nasty little hole they emanated from.