To ask - Jeremy Corbyn - PM

[MommaGee]

There's stuff about how he thinks he'll be PM in 6 months. How the GLASTO coverage is a BBC plot to "see a MARXIST in power" etc etc but how?
TM is hardly going to call another election and Labor are likely to keep her long enough to get through the crap that is Brexit.

Apologies for all those thinking in thick but I don't see how JC has any even inkling of getting it, let alone a discussion on how much swing he'd need

In one way it would actually be funny to see what would happen if JC and JM got it except for the fact it would destroy the country for decades. If anyone thinks it's a good idea please have a quick look at the 70's which made the 2008 financial crisis look like someone dropped 10p down the back of the sofa. But no. I don't think JC will
Ever be PM when there is eventuslly another GE. The Tories will have this act much more together. But I'm seriously fed up
With the cult of corbyn. You can't say anything without one of his congregation jumping down your throat everything he says and does is right. I think another 4years of him waving at students from festival stages and JM pushing his Marxist agenda rather than forming a realistic opposition will have pissed off enough people. If JC ever did get in I think it would be a case of 4legs good 2legs even better in a matter of months. The two blokes are so self serving it's untrue

Clearly it is complicated. What exactly would be the impact of increasing the minimum wage? Some companies will go under. How many? We can't know for sure. How many people will benefit, and spend more, and perhaps invest more in their children's lives etc etc?
What will the longer-term impact be? It is hard to tell.
If there are important arguments to be made here against increasing the minimum wage - and if this is the main worry about JC etc - then it would be good to get the message out there.
I agree that policies should be carefully evaluated. I just don't know whether JC and team are doing much worse at this than the tories...?

I think we need to be honest about the state of wages in this country. Paying working people tax credits is hiding the problem - which is that many people earn a wage which is too low to live on. Until a government is willing to look at that fairly and squarely nothing is going to change.

I run a company that would probably close if a new minimum wage was introduced.

We are not making a huge profit, however we employ quite a few local people. We give generous holidays and are very caring with time off etc. We work closely with unions who are very happy with how we run things. Most of our workforce is manually skilled but not hugely academic, there just aren't many manual jobs out there for them to get. Lots of them don't have cars so its not as easy as driving a long distance to get something else.

It's nice for people in rural areas to be able to walk to work, to have caring employers and jobs for life. It will be a shame for them if we close and they all have to scrabble around for jobs at tescos etc.

Fwiw our own salaries are pretty tiny we are certainly not top tax bracket people by any means.

i've got various worries about JC - this is one of his policies that doesn't seem well evaluated to me. I understand that economic models have problems and are often bad simulations for predicting behaviour, that said, I don't see that this means we should ditch them all and become rudderless. Basing policies on the best advice you can get from a cross section of expert policy economists has to be better than sticking your finger in the air.

I wouldn't get my windows changed by a company that didn't know anything about windows because both window specialist companies I had quotes from had made minor mistakes in previous window installations, iyswim.

In one way it would actually be funny to see what would happen if JC and JM got it except for the fact it would destroy the country for decades.

Oddly enough, as I watched David Cameron's party promise all the extreme stuff when they were in coalition with the Lib Dems, I had exactly the same thought. I watched thinking that it was obvious they were setting up a ridiculous manifesto, knowing the Lib Dems would oppose it.

When Cameron got back in, I thought (with a kind of sick fascination) that he was now going to have to follow through with all the bullshit he had spouted and that the direction he was going would break the country in two.

Oddly though, the schadenfreud at what he has done to the country and the party doesn't actually outweigh the appalling horror of watching the UK burn.

Mercime your company sounds great.
You say it would probably close - so I very much hope that it would not.

But are you opposed to the minimum wage altogether? I bet that there are some other companies which were also good which had to close because they could not pay the current minimum wage.

If the minimum wage increase, some good companies will find themselves forced to close. Perhaps some other companies will spring up in response to these closed companies (perhaps fewer?). Some other companies will survive and the increased wage many workers will get paid more as a result. It is hard to predict what would happen on a large scale, and always sad to contemplate the individual losses. But the principle of a living wage is surely something that we should work towards - and I agree with PP that we need to work out the implications as best we can. But we surely cannot rest content with people being paid less than the living wage in this 1st world country.

Lot of strong and stable posturing on here.

It's no good Tories. We have seen your weakness, confusion and fear.

and presumably merci if you close your business, that'll be all your workers plus you no longer producing and now requiring state subsidies. This is why firms need subsidies. What about the multi-nationals may also decide to relocate based on higher labour costs and higher corporation taxes?

Even if you don't use existing models, looking at the impact of the minimum wage AND corporation taxes market sector by market sector for different sizes of firms should've been done. Where is that analysis labour? I'm sure the low pay commission have it...

Go now, with a shred of honour.

Mercime, we probably need to look at the whole picture - find out how many businesses are genuinely in your shoes, and then assess what effect those businesses going out of business would have. Then see if there are any other measures that could be introduced to lower the cost of living. After all, wages are too low/the cost of living is too high are opposite sides of the same coin. For example, introducing some form of rent control/increasing social housing/subsidising childcare costs (this is coming with the 30 free hours) etc etc - none of that would impact on small businesses but would help people on low incomes. Caps on utility bills would be another one.

i guess my point is (I should get back to my job) that I see no evidence at all that labour have any detailed analysis of the jobs impact of their 2 key policies on the min wage and corporation tax.

It's all very well and right-on to say everyone should get a living wage, but if the net result will be some people getting a living wage, some people getting no wage, some people getting hours cuts and young people facing a harder time finding any job, it doesn't sound especially attractive on the ground.

Thank you badger

We pay the current minimum wage. I don't know, we could probably struggle on if the minimum wage rose. A rise in corporation tax wouldn't affect us then as we almost certainly wouldn't be making a profit (weary )

We'd have to severely streamline to keep afloat I guess. Determined not to close!

What would help us would be if the govt would prioritise UK businesses when issuing tenders!

i agree Two, perhaps Corbyn should pick one bloody big problem and just fix that rather than making a lot of moves that haven't been analysed properly and could be a total fiasco. A sensible, detailed, achievable plan on housing - that'd be nice wouldn't it?

pottered I agree. We have to do the best that we can with the models available. I also think though that where we know that the models are not that reliable, there is room for principles and rights etc. E.g. I might do something unfair (so against my principles) if I absolutely knew that it would be best for all concerned. But I would be much less inclined to do something unfair if I knew that my predictions were a bit unreliable.
I think here there is a principle - that people should be paid a living wage. Absolutely we should investigate the implications of that as best as we possibly can before implementing it but if the investigations lead us to uncertainty about the outcomes, then I would let the principle have at least some weight in the decision.
Is your thought that JC and all have not done the investigations that they should have? Perhaps this is hard when you are in opposition and do not have the civil service behind you - but then perhaps they should have made no promise in the manifesto except to look into the minimum wage? There is a general problem with our democratic system I think - one party has the civil service to write reports and calculate cost-benefits, whereas the other doesn't...

Why should they go? They won the GE, even if only with a minority!!

Trouble is, the perceived wisdom is that if you can't afford to pay the new minimum wage or living wage you DESERVE to go out of business. Then people lose their jobs, end up on benefits, get depressed and miserable.

I often think some businesses should get subsidies to keep them employing rural (because thats my experience) people. We should get help to keep going! It would be desperate for our staff if we went under :-(

"He gets a big salary for being in opposition. "

Do you think he ought to do it for free?

I find Corbyn absolutely abhorent and anyone supporting him is living in lala land but he has one hell of a PR team, what a find they were.

Anyone who thought that the Tories might still have a chance of winning the next election, whenever it comes, must surely realise that with the DUP agreement today the Tories have probably ensured they will be out of power for probably two successive Parliaments.

"He gets a big salary for being in opposition. " yes and all the benefits that being in the houses of parliament bring, the subsidised food etc

he is private school educated and lives in a leafy part of London

not sure whether that should matter but it sort of makes him slightly harder for me to warm to.

I think if TM makes a success of sorts of Brexit () and JC keeps hanging out with rappers and starts to get on everyones nerves then the Tories will be safe for while yet.

To Jeremy Corbin's credit he didn't do any of the following ...

Call a foolish, ill-thought out referendum, mostly to shut up the extreme right of his party, without any plan for dealing with the fall out if the result didn't go his way.

Call a foolish, ill-thought through snap election due to misplaced confidence in the party's popularity and end up losing his majority, having to get into bed with the repulsive DUP on the eve of the most important negotiations of the country's recent history.

He seems to be galvanising the youth vote. That in itself is an achievement. He also presented the electorate with a vision of the future that they found desirable, rather than just parrot 'strong and stable' and hope the electorate would be fooled.

I don't think he's doing too badly, personally

Yes Mercime perhaps there should be some sort of subsidy.

I totally agree with people saying that the details need to be properly worked out. I just think that is hard to do in opposition, and the principle of a living wage is surely something that we can all get behind. The devil will be in the details!