Labour policies unrealistic

[puds11]

I’ve just been reading through the 12 main policies (according to BBC) and can’t help but think pretty much all of them sound unrealistic and like they will result in national debt.

Does anyone else think this? Or can anyone explain how it won’t?

I’m not anti the minimum wage rising or the 5% for public sector workers - they’ve had a pay freeze for years.

I think free broadband and part nationalising BT is madness.

I’m concerned about the building of new homes, from an environmental point of view really.

Time will tell.

Completely agree and it will bankrupt the country. Our want full state control which is why they want to nationalise everything on sight. You’d have to be mad and a bit thick to vote for them. I said it before on here. Labour will spend, spend, spend and then the tories will have to come in and sort out their mess and it’ll make them the ‘bad’ party with austerity measures.
It amazes me how voters don’t see this

*Labour want full state control

I think the ideas behind the policies are good ideas, obviously I want people to have decent wages and places to live, I just don’t see how they can do it. It seems like cruel false promises simply to garner votes. How you can raise the minimum wage by almost £2 in one year without problems I don’t know!

Given there are posters on here with names like "FOJeremy" I can generally tell which way this thread will go, so I'm only posting once.
The whole manifesto has been costed. And it really is surprising how much money there is from just 10% of the UK's top 5 richest people and what that could pay for. Boris has been open about giving tax breaks to these kinds of people. And I just can't see how that's right. I think the last labour government fucked up coming off the back of Iraq and the money spent there, which JC was against.
I just cannot fathom how people can vote for a party that has seen food banks and even babybanks rise ten fold. Even if you hate labour and Jeremy Corbyn you can still vote for a different party. The Tories told us to tighten our belts 9 years ago and why the fuck should that be the people at the bottom who already work hard. I work with the elderly and some of them live in dickensian conditions. No heating, no light in one house I went to. These are people who have paid taxes all their life. And where has their money gone ??? The Tories haven't sorted out anything. 9 years and people are still struggling. No opportunities to change their circumstances. If you vote Tory for another 5 years of what is hell for a lot families you're a fucking wanker. I'm not even a labour voter but I just cannot see misery for another 5 years

I think there are some great ideas BUT I don’t see how most of them will be paid for and implemented. I’m also wary if so much State control, however, putting everything in Private hands hasn’t worked so well.
To be honest I would never vote for them anyway so this manifesto makes no difference to me anyway.

I think free broadband and part nationalising BT is madness

They are talking about nationalising openreach, which is a private monopoly and has been a barrier to growing the UK communication infrastructure. I can see why it's being proposed.

The building homes is a bit worrying. A lot of new estates are really badly thought out in poor locations with no infrastructure or cheaply and nastily made.

The whole manifesto has been costed.

Yeah, but the costings are wrong. Pumping that much money into infrastructure investment always creates new jobs. That will raise more money, not shown in their costings, and what will they do with that?

Probably piss it away on schools and hospitals- fucking commies.

Look at Germany, Sweden, Norway or America during the new deal or after Obama's investment: developed nations spending money on capital investment, new technology and education is a terrible idea.

Labour's policies are considered standard in most Scandinavian countries. He's considered moderate up there. If it works there, it can work here. People have just been indoctrinated to think otherwise. Plenty of other countries have nationised services successfully, Japan, Switzerland, Portugal to name a few. We're being and have been done over as a nation by the tories and blair's poor excuse for Labour for over 3 decades. No wonder people doubt. But research what happens in other successful economies and you will be very surprised. Don't fall for the media bias.
The media are owned by billionaires, Labour will make them pay their fair share in taxes, the Conservatives won't. Who do you think they will support?

Labour will spend, spend, spend and then the tories will have to come in and sort out their mess and it’ll make them the ‘bad’ party with austerity measures.

Are you aware of just how much the Tories have added to the national debt during their era of austerity? It’s terrifying. They don’t have the excuse of having had to bail out the banks, they’ve run public services into the ground, and they’ve accrued more debt than Labour ever did.

GCAcademic - I am no Tory but that is totally misleading. Total debt was low under Labour but rose dramatically during the financial crisis. This was because as a result of the financial crisis government spending rose and tax revenue fell. As a result, government was spending a third more than it received in tax revenues. That was totally unsustainable and needed massive increases in tax and relatively modest spending cuts to tackle it.

It was absolutely necessary to close that gap between government spending and revenue. Put simply, the financial crisis mean that the country was poorer and could no longer afford what it had and so had to reduce spending and increase income (taxes). This was austerity and was absolutely necessary.

The country’s financial position has stabilised but that does not mean that we can afford a spending spree that will decimate our telecoms industry (free broadband will put many companies out of business) or huge tax increases.

Please tell me which other countries give free broadband.

Nationalising Openreach is not totally crazy, but the free broadband is a massive cost, which will just lead to more taxes elsewhere.

Eyewhisker - I don’t see how my post is misleading. I agree that reductions in spending were necessary, and am also uncomfortable about a spending spree. But the fact is that the Tories have added massively to the national debt. It is now £1.8 trillion (85% of GDP), up from £1 trillion (or 60% of GDP) when they came to power. And that is with austerity, and without the huge bailout that the banks received in 2008. So the Tories have hardly “come in and sorted out the mess” as a pp claimed.

eyewhisker there may not be anywhere else that offers free broadband as yet but as a comparison, Belgium has free public transport.
Plenty of publicly owned broadband globally though, particularly in the US of all unlikely places!

Making broadband more accessible would be a bit of an equaliser given that virtually all jobseeking and access to other services is almost all online.

I very much doubt all broadband will be free anyway. It'll just be a basic package.

snuggybuggy exactly, anyone who has ever had the misfortune of job hunting on a job centre machine will understand why we need vastly more accessible broadband.

I don’t disagree with raising taxes and definitely want to see less people homeless and needing access to food banks but I just think some of the timeframes are ridiculously short and will result in either disappointment from not providing or massive debt from the short time frame in which they are provided.

I haven’t looked at Conservative yet, just Labour, but will also be reading theirs with a critical eye.

It’s the first time I’ve really struggled with a voting decision. In the past I’ve always voted labour but these policies just seem so far fetched! I think without the time constraints I’d have thought they were fine, but with those added in I just don’t see the feasibility.

I remember a colleague of mine who'd been in her job 20 years wittering on about how unemployed people all had phones and laptops who refused to believe me when I explained the reality of looking for and applying for jobs these days. She was convinced you could still do it all by letter!

The ‘truths’ about unemployed and benefits is so annoying. Daily Mail to thank for that bullshit.

I totally agree with making sure people on benefits have broadband and can even understand nationalising Openreach. Having everyone get broadband for free through?? Really? That £30 per month will just be raised through taxes another way. Labour are talking full fibre broadband for free so hardly a ‘basic package’.

GC - the dent rose because there was a huge gap between income and expenditure due to the financial crisis. If that gap was allowed to continue, then debt would go up extremely fast. It is hard to blame the stories for rising debt when they inherit annual spending of 100, but tax revenue of just 60. Austerity just closed that gap between income and expenditure gradually over time, but that meant that total debt continued to rise. You may disagree with how they closed it, but it is totally misleading to blame them for the existence of a gap in the first place.

And no, I will not vote Conservative because of Brexit and I find Johnson repellent.

Is anyone else reminded of the doom sayers when a national health service was first proposed ?

And yet national debt has increased substantially since 2010 according to the Office for National Statistics ...

Do you think the Tory policies over the last 9 years have been realistic? Theyve cut services to the bone and STILL caused national debt

For me voting Labour is a no brainer, no matter how far fetched their policies may seem. The tories have ruined our NHS, our schools, our police force, fire service, destroyed disability benefits, declared terminal cancer patients fit for work, contributed to the deaths of over 130,000 people in the name of "austerity" .... The list is endless. I personally couldn't afford private health care and if the tories get back in, they will welcome Trump and his cronies with open arms and sell the NHS to the highest bidder. Voting Labour is literally a choice between life or death for me and my family. It sounds extreme but it is the reality of private health care. Bankruptcy and homelessness at best, death at worst.