Are the Conservatives now lost?

[disenfranchised]

£15bn of housing measures breakdown:

- £10bn on Help to Buy

- £3bn on stamp duty cuts 

- £2bn on social housing 

The most recent land registry numbers put new homes at £280k average, trending at +8.9% but acknowledges the data is volatile (it has been over £300k in other months), which neatly coincides with stamp duty changes, how convenient. 

As the Torygraph was reporting in 2011 property developers have been pouring money into the Tory party for years. Most of the above measures seem to help their mates more than the under 40s locked out of ownership - but - even if you accept the Conservatives at face value and believe they are setting out with genuine intentions of delivering a property owning democracy for the next generation, those sort of numbers are utter chicken feed.

£15bn is also what Crossrail is costing, and pales to insignificance next to the  £55bn being spent on HS2. That's it - that's what it's worth to them to address this "crisis". The cost of a new tube line.

I cannot say I am remotely surprised. The temptation to keep pumping to clear the next obstacle is simply too great. Pump your way to the 2015 election. Now pump yourself past Brexit. 

But forget housing for a minute. How many people under 40 do you know running a business they started requiring a premises? I've watched a couple of friends try, and give up - broken, in the main, by the cost of rent and rates. In the case of one in the automotive sector, costing £25k a year and swallowing 50% of year 1 turnover. I have watched another change her dream of owning a coffee shop into a coffee van, because commercial rents are so ruinous.  I know two who run a kitchen and bathroom company they started after the crash. They use a small amount of rented space as storage and have a sales van kitted out. They are very very good at what they do, but are unable to take it to the next level as the cost of any kind of premises is prohibitive. In every case, they simply cannot compete with established (often multi-generational) businesses which have either acquired their own premises before property prices went ballistic, or built themselves up already to have the cashflow / financing to cope. QE has made this harder not easier - rather than resulting in  lending to businesses it has simply lead to more price rises.

We don't really talk about commercial property much on here, but the stress tests the banks went through were for a larger drop than residential, so even more overvalued. What have the Tories, the supposed party of the entrepreneur, done? Nothing I can see. 

We had 16 years of Thatcher/Major until the electorate threw the Conservatives  under a bus in 1997. The country was in pretty good shape then - so much so that Labour had to become "red tie Tories" to get back into power. By 2022 we'll have had 12 years of them this time, only a year less than the New Labour project - but here in the middle of the cycle, there is no enthusiasm for the Conservative party amongst ordinary people. They are the party of VI big business, developers, and finance. Free markets are only for the plebs. Government help is for the former. 

To give Thatcher some credit, she had balls (metaphorical ones). She did not shirk what had, as she saw it, to be done and destroyed the power of the unions, broke up nationalised industries and flogged the social housing (her genius was flogging it to the occupiers not housing associations).  Those are big changes.

May & her cronies and predecessors promise under 100,000 immigrants a year and 300,000 homes a year - instead they have delivered the opposite. No balls, just lies to keep the voters sedated.

Now the Conservatives truly deserve the 'Selfservatives' tag. Just like New Labour - tinkering around the edges with "eye-catching iniatives" - no real policies for change they will nail their hats to. More of the same, sod young people, sod social mobility, sod the long-term future. HMRC chasing Bob the Builder instead of Branson the Robber Baron. The only major change is Brexit and they have been forced into that with their arm twisted behind their back - protecting themselves from UKIP in the 2015 election by offering a referendum they thought they couldn't lose.

The emergency "Break glass to release dangerous Marxist" vote Corbyn option has never looked more attractive. It is getting to the stage where it would be worth paying a bit more tax to let him run amok for 5 years out of sheer spite for these useless ******ing corporate shill  Tories isn't it?

[dougless]

I am delighted to see  that people can finally can see how toxic the Tories really are.  However it saddens me to see the mess they are creating with their pointless austerity and that they are not taking the opportunity to invest in infrastructure whilst money is 'cheap'.

The Tories are running (and ruining) the UK into the ground and we are all going to suffer.

Edited November 24, 2017 by dougless

[Maynardgravy]

This budget was make or break. They sided with their donors. It doesn't matter how many young they conned with this stamp duty 'giveaway' the true effects will come out in the wash and those houses will never get built (again), and pressure on land bankers will be deemed unnecessary. 

They're toast - I just can't work out if they know this or not.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

The tories are doing just fine...getting richer by the day.

[North London Rent Girl]

33 minutes ago, disenfranchised said:

But forget housing for a minute. How many people under 40 do you know running a business they started requiring a premises? I've watched a couple of friends try, and give up - broken, in the main, by the cost of rent and rates. In the case of one in the automotive sector, costing £25k a year and swallowing 50% of year 1 turnover. I have watched another change her dream of owning a coffee shop into a coffee van, because commercial rents are so ruinous.  I know two who run a kitchen and bathroom company they started after the crash. They use a small amount of rented space as storage and have a sales van kitted out. They are very very good at what they do, but are unable to take it to the next level as the cost of any kind of premises is prohibitive. In every case, they simply cannot compete with established (often multi-generational) businesses which have either acquired their own premises before property prices went ballistic, or built themselves up already to have the cashflow / financing to cope. QE has made this harder not easier - rather than resulting in  lending to businesses it has simply lead to more price rises.

Great examples, and this must be happening all over the place - very determined people just not being able to get ahead. I know one bloke who has converted an old horse lorry into a catering van with accommodation and he's living in it full-time so he doesn't have to pay rent - rents in the area are horrible high. Great solution well done him but it seems to me that even the most resourceful are being pushed to the limit.

Edit - oh and thank you so much for 'Selfservatives', first time I've seen it, magic.

Edited November 24, 2017 by North London Rent Girl

[winkie]

For many people there is not a party they could at this moment in time vote for......there are other more powerful forces in action.....no party can be all things to all people, and what they promise they don't necessarily deliver, everything worth doing takes so long...the rest is short-term sticking plasters.....all the same.

[rollover]

 

Quote

 

Why the economic forecasts for Britain are so apocalyptic  Independent

 

 

 

 

[winkie]

......be interested is seeing a graph of LTD new companies set up over last 20 years......how many people they actually employ not including directors......and a graph of all new start up businesses that no longer trade.

Not easy to start a small business and make it work not a level playing field.....  most fail in the first three years, not supported .....

[Social Justice League]

The Tories have always been about as much use to the general public as a chocolate fireguard. 

Their brand of capitalism doesn't work for 99% of the population.  All they and their mates want to do is leech off the 99%'s hard work.

 

They are just an embarrassment now and should pack it in.

[Futuroid]

Are they now lost?

Have you been in a coma for the past three years? 

[sideysid]

People get confused when they ask me how I voted and I reply I voted for Brexit and will be voting for Corbyn in the next election.

The default Brexit voter must be a UKIP racist fanatic, seems to be the general train of thought.

You just have to look at the mass youth unemployment in Europe, Italy looking next to wobble, to see the whole house of cards will fall for the next generation. 

On our shores, unemployment statistics are grossly manipulated through working tax credits and zero hour contracts. Just looking at the flatlining UK productivity since 2007 tells the real story.

I don’t think Corbyn will fix anything. But I do think the system will crash faster with him in power. The system is grossly unjust for the younger generation and needs to be reset.

[disenfranchised]

6 minutes ago, Futuroid said:

Are they now lost?

Have you been in a coma for the past three years? 

Not at all. I wondered whether they had to some extent, separated what will get them elected with what needs to be done.

Thatcher never stood up in 1979 and said "vote for me and I'll sell off all the nationalised industries and bus the Metropolitan Police up to Yorkshire to kick the shit out of Scargill & co when they strike"

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by disenfranchised

[stuckmojo]

I think they know they are ******ed and the tide is rising against them no matter what. They've probably accepted that they will be out of power soon enough and they're focusing on the long game. That's why no new faces are put forward as they'd be inevitably burned. 

Shit political system where the party staying in power is always more important than the good of the nation. More so for Labour too. 

I dread the next few years, worst case scenario incoming. 

[Riedquat]

16 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

The Tories have always been about as much use to the general public as a chocolate fireguard. 

Their brand of capitalism doesn't work for 99% of the population.  All they and their mates want to do is leech off the 99%'s hard work.

 

They are just an embarrassment now and should pack it in.

True, but they keep getting back in to power because the other parties are so unpalatable. The idea of any of them running the country is a scary prospect.

[Futuroid]

9 minutes ago, disenfranchised said:

Not at all. I wondered whether they had to some extent, separated what will get them elected with what needs to be done.

Thatcher never stood up in 1979 and said "vote for me and I'll sell off all the nationalised industries and bus the Metropolitan Police up to Yorkshire to kick the shit out of Scargill & co when they strike"

 

She didn't say that but she did say she'd sort the unions out and privatisation was openly on the agenda for multiple general elections after 1979. I remember everyone being so happy about getting their windfalls from British gas shares ("tell Sid"), now the same people are pensioners complaining about their gas bills! 

People went into that with their eyes open. Just like they are going into the forthcoming episode of disaster capitalism with their eyes open, they voted for it despite being told what the consequences would be.

[Funn3r]

4 minutes ago, sideysid said:

The default Brexit voter must be a UKIP racist fanatic, seems to be the general train of thought.

I don't think that's true. There are one or two in the Brexit thread who have owned up to racism but most of them seem to be ordinary people, utterly frustrated by the state of UK society (surely as we all are) but - dangerously - see the complete answer in a misty-eyed tribal-emotional solution where we wave union jacks and sing Rule Brittania all day. 

Stagnant earnings forecast until 2022 at least, real disposable incomes set to fall for 19 successive quarters, I want our government working on a proper solution not going around in circles doing fake negotiations with the EU. Sadly I don't believe they will make any progress with either.

[frederico]

I found the OBR forecast and subsequent analysis shocking, I can't believe Hammond saw fit to tell jokes.

This country is in a hell of a state. I hadn't realised universal credit is frozen for example.

As usual with the May government they talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

They are allowed to get away with it because the opposition are terrible. The rich must thank their lucky stars for Corbyn.

[Social Justice League]

I don't think the opposition are terrible at all.

Many, many people don't want the current system of bent capitalism that robs the 99% to give to the 1%.

It is disgusting and needs halting one way or another.

Revolution might be an option.

[Funn3r]

9 minutes ago, frederico said:

They are allowed to get away with it because the opposition are terrible. The rich must thank their lucky stars for Corbyn.

I get suspicious when I start hearing certain things non-stop from every direction. Only two reasons for it - either that thing is already true, or someone is mounting a strong campaign to make it true. "Take no action, the alternative is even worse" is what I am hearing from every direction at the moment.

[frederico]

1 minute ago, Funn3r said:

I get suspicious when I start hearing certain things non-stop from every direction. Only two reasons for it - either that thing is already true, or someone is mounting a strong campaign to make it true. "Take no action, the alternative is even worse" is what I am hearing from every direction at the moment.

I don't believe the labour front bench really believe a word they say.

[Social Justice League]

All Corbyn needs to do is build millions of for rent only council houses and crash the property market.

Very easy to achieve and very much needed.

[frederico]

5 minutes ago, Social Justice League said:

I don't think the opposition are terrible at all.

Many, many people don't want the current system of bent capitalism that robs the 99% to give to the 1%.

It is disgusting and needs halting one way or another.

Revolution might be an option.

Yeah but you're not going to get any change through labour.

Lower to middle earners will pay through the nose to fund worthy causes. The cost of living would be the same or higher. Can you really see Corbyn sorting out the financial system?

Parliament itself needs a revolution, it needs to modernise and get into the real world. Totally new approaches are required.

Not sure how we get there though.

Believe it or not I would like to be optimistic, but I really can't see how our political and financial systems can sort themselves out with out a Zimbabwe type event and that's never going to happen.

[Errol]

44 minutes ago, sideysid said:

People get confused when they ask me how I voted and I reply I voted for Brexit and will be voting for Corbyn in the next election.

Brexit was always an entirely apolitical matter anyway - something that half the people in Westminster seemed to fail to understand. Virtually all those who voted, I'm fairly certain, knew how they would vote a long time before any campaign started. And in any event, it's not the sort of issue you can campaign about anyway.

[disenfranchised]

2 minutes ago, Futuroid said:

She didn't say that but she did say she'd sort the unions out and privatisation was openly on the agenda for multiple general elections after 1979. I remember everyone being so happy about getting their windfalls from British gas shares ("tell Sid"), now the same people are pensioners complaining about their gas bills! 

Agree that the 1979 election manifesto was unequivocal about sorting the unions out. And they did it.

How many 2010 on pledges have the Tories actually delivered? 

They were going to eliminate the deficit in 5 years. Here we are 7.5 years later with the deficit ticking along and corporation tax cut from 25% to 19%.

[DarkHorseWaits-NoMore]

> Are the Conservatives now lost?

No, they are where they have always been, just that some are waking up to the reality through the mist of the protecting media propaganda message.

Even if Corbyn was elected and had the right strategy to fix the country, there's no way any kind of socialist answers can ever be allow to succeed (anywhere, globally), even if they are as soft left as his actually are. Like I've said before, you need to re educate and unbrainwash the people before you can even fairly debate such systemic problems. Knowing this makes me wonder why I even bother anymore... principles I guess.