Well isn't it about time we built some more railways if only to save Gordon Bennett's "planet" because according to him "we have only 50 days left to save the planet". As long as there are people, there will be a need for infrastructure and for renewing crumbling infrastructure and improving the lives of people.
Oh I agree claig, but even if we built new railways, that wouldn't power enough domestic demand for a mass employment steel industry indefinitely.
Because we are subsidising them with our taxpayer money as well as handing it out willy-nilly to Labour luvvies and what are laughingly called Labour "bigwigs in charidees.
We are indeed, it does make sense for them to be nationalised. Or to receive 0 subsidy. I'm not defending our existing system, just pointing out how expensive either option would be for the average traveller & government. It's not as though TFL fares are super cheap just because they're a public entity, remember.
But in case you hadn't noticed, we have improved them since and improved safety standards and we transport millions more people and they need cheaper fares when we have some of the most expensive fares in Europe as per usual in rip-off Britain where an Oxbridge elite class work in unison with fat cats to rip ordinary people off.
Yes, it's great (the improving standards bit). Long may it continue. Privatising BR was a mistake, renationalising it will be very expensive and arguably shouldn't really be priority numero uno for an incoming govt., but I don't disagree with the principle of the thing.
Well then we need to create one and cut subsidies to landed gentry to erect wind farms on their land with our taxpayer money thanks to the munifence of the Baronesses and Gordon Bennett and his friends.
Duke of Gloucester gets subsidies for farming, not just for windfarms. Consumers benefit hugely from lower food prices, the proportion of people's salaries paid as food has fallen as the proportion taken by housing has risen. Housing is just as essential as food, yet I can't imagine hearing you suggesting we subsidise landlords...Like me I think you also view Housing Benefit as a policy designed to line the pockets of wealthy landlords whilst abdicating the conservatives from the consequences of the dreadful right to buy policy.
Do you think money grows on trees? Are you in agreement with Gordon Bennett and his friends? What we need is jobs, industry, infrastructure, investment, development, production, manufacturing not "training schemes in further education colleges" for steel workers who have been made redundant because the EU bankers say it is illegal to support our own workers and our own industries.
Do you think money grows on trees? It is far more expensive (and wasteful) to maintain an industrial base producing things no one buys than it is to give people a decent income, training and help them work in jobs the economy actually needs! It's not the 1950s, it will never be the 1950s again, you need to give up your time machine dream.
And they were. But I love Thatcher because for the first time ever we had a Prime Minister who stood up for us, the aspirational middle class, and shared our values as opposed to the out of touch values of the liberal intelligentsia, the metropolitan elite, the Nooting Hill set, the luvvies, the PPEs, the modernisers and Gordon Bennett and his friends.
But without Thatcher we'd be living this industrial dream. She's the one that stopped subsidising underperforming coal mines and let them go on the dole with no plan for how they could fit into a new economy. She's the one that smashed union protections and created the bubbles and the economy you are trying so hard to return the 50s.
Because as Corbyn rightly says we will create better living standards, employment and prospects for our people so that they can achieve more and actualise themselves and create more productive products that eleveate the living standards of all the people instead of being crushed by austerity while the elite attend Piers Gaveston parties and burn £50 notes in front of homeless people while dismiising everyone in poverty as being genetically too stupid to be like them. Instead of QE for the bankers and their bonuses and champagne and offshore accounts, we will do a people's QE that will improve the infrastructure and living standards of the country with our own taxpayer money instead of wasting it willy-nilly on charidees staffed by Labour luvvies who are temporarily out of work because the public turfed them out in an election.
Circular reasoning. You give people jobs that produce things that are not needed. You are giving them benefits as surely as if they were on the dole. After Corbyn has built his railway, his airport, a couple of new schools and a steel factory, those people still need to be employed.
We will create a better website for our steel, for a start. Broadband is to unleash the inventive capacities of our people in the new digital age and economy so that we can create new services, new software and new solutions that we can sell to the world.
How?
Because better living standards help our people to work more productively, just like supplying a roof over people's heads gives them the stability to do more than just survive by sleeping on the streets.
You could have the most productive steel factory int he world but it would still go bust if it couldn't find any customers. Who will we sell this steel too? Why will they buy it? Why won't they put retaliatory tarriffs up?
Yes, but just like the legendary Donald Trump says, we will bring jobs back home to create products for our own people instead of importing them and importing steel from abroad which longterm puts our own people out of work. It's not New Labour, it's Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, it's a new world. As I have said before "the people are back!" and Gordon Bennett is gone except to be rolled out in crises so that he strut up and down a stage lecturing the dwindling faithful Labour luvvies on how not to do it.
We do not produce steel at a price other countries want to buy. If we did, we would already have a thriving steel industry already. We don't even make steel currently at a price that British businesses want to buy it. In order for British businesses to buy British steel, they would have to be forced to buy it (through trade tariffs) or we would have to subsidise the manufacturers. Either way, it's costing the state a huge amount just so we can have steel. Free Trade works on the basis that some things are cheaper to produce in some countries than others (classic example: British Wool & Portuguese wine). In order for us to have a sustainable steel industry, we would need to sell to foreign countries, but those countries wouldn't buy from us as we would have put up the trade tariffs on their products.
I don't know but that is not what I am saying, I am saying we sell the TV rights to billions of people who watch it across the planet. Just like pop music or computer games or BBC programmes, it is one of our soft exports and something that we are good at.
I see you are understanding Free Trade finally. We should concentrate on those things that we are good at - such as computer games, films, high quality manufacturing etc. etc. Not try to force our economy to become a facsimile of the early 20th century, a large heavy manufacturing base servicing an empire. Other countries are better at heavy manufacturing than we are, and we both benefit by trading the things we are good at.
Do the Chines make no profit, do the Germans make no profit? There is always profit if you make products that the world wants to buy. We have the skilled people to do it but we lack investment due to short-termism and waste of our public money to hand it over to unemployed Labour luvvies doing stints in charidees.
And the world doesn't want to buy British steel. Of course China & Germany make profit - as does Britain. Most countries are not universally successful across all manufacturing industries. That's why we all benefit from Free Trade, where we sell our amazing products in return for other countries' amazing products.
No I don't. India can make it's own steel and we can make our own. If we can't make enough then we have to import it, but for Heaven's sake, let's make some.
Why should we make when it's more expensive to make it in the UK? Why can't we specialise in the sectors we're already good at?
The purpose of our own industry is not to beat China in a price war, it is to support our own national needs for our own infrastructure and to keep our own workers employed. It is "sustainability", Gordon Bennett's favourite word but he only applies it to windmills and the "planet".
And as I keep saying, our manufacturing industry is too expensive even for British business in Britain, which is why we don't currently have a mass employment heavy industrial base any more. There is no particular reason we have to make our own steel when we can buy it cheaper from elsewhere. In return we get to sell our products to other countries.
OK. You keep voting for Liz Kendall then or even Cameron and Osborne against the Corbyn you dislike. See if they improve society for you.
Blair wasn't perfect but Britain is better for 13 yrs of New Labour rule, certainly better than it would have been under 13 more years of Conservative rule.