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| Labour Leadership Contest; merged thread | |
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| Topic Started: May 15 2015, 01:02 PM (2,226 Views) | |
| Tytoalba | May 15 2015, 01:02 PM Post #1 |
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Chuka Umunna withdraws Labour leader bid, Who is left to lead them? The BBC has been attacking UKIP and Farrage for days, but at least they have a leader. Labour are in a state of uncertainty, and we do need a good opposition in the HOC, |
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| C-too | Aug 3 2015, 09:07 PM Post #441 |
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Honourable Member
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Equally, Tories know the size of their Bank account and vote through their wallets. Edited by C-too, Aug 3 2015, 09:39 PM.
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| Affa | Aug 3 2015, 09:22 PM Post #442 |
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I find it quite incredible that someone who dedicated their whole working life to public service, to have been a public servant, should exhibit such extreme capitalist views and values ....... i.e. we keep what we earn and earn as much as we can. Edited by Affa, Aug 3 2015, 09:22 PM.
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| Steve K | Aug 3 2015, 09:57 PM Post #443 |
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Once and future cynic
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You miss the points First: 13 years of Labour actually made the income inequality worse. It shows what happens when you pursue unimaginative socialist policies of treat symptoms and ignore root causes. You may take many or even most out of gut wrenching poverty but you actually increase social inequality. Second it is very important to realise the difference between wealth and income. We have so many very rich here that actually have not so significant incomes. Pursuing classic Labour policies of tax income and ignore wealth will just make social inequality worse. The question becomes do you really want to reduce social inequality or just attack those you can easily get at? |
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| Tytoalba | Aug 3 2015, 09:59 PM Post #444 |
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Everyone should know the size of their bank accounts, as well as their outgoings and debts .I expect that you do unless your following your socialist ideals and giving it all to the state Mr Micawber's famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." |
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| Nonsense | Aug 3 2015, 10:00 PM Post #445 |
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A man,arguably,who knew more about 'capitalism' than the 'capitalist' themselves,in particular, 'dialectic materialism' & the effects of money in it's social context. Marx was a great observer of human behaviour,he made significant contributions to the understanding of the human condition & the causes of social conflict. Unlike the national socialist of Germany, who blamed every ill on the Jews,Marx analysed transactions & drew a coherently logical theory based upon that knowledge. Like any 'belief' though ,no matter how pure it may be,it immediately becomes degraded by human practice into a corrupted ideology. |
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| Steve K | Aug 3 2015, 10:19 PM Post #446 |
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Once and future cynic
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For Affa mainly: An interesting read on income inequality An extract: ![]() Now the fact that income inequality FELL after Labour left office is arguably for technical reasons but fact is it fell. Not what most think |
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| Affa | Aug 3 2015, 10:27 PM Post #447 |
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I got the points, and it is noticeable that you left the second one alone - knowing that the wriggle you made didn't have the result you wanted. I sort of do agree that taxing income does have its faults, but to make out that it is a result of New Labour is just another reason to identify you in terms you object to. |
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| Steve K | Aug 3 2015, 10:29 PM Post #448 |
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Once and future cynic
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Are you unable to post something without including an insult?
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| Affa | Aug 3 2015, 10:36 PM Post #449 |
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And I guess you saw what you wanted to see and missed that the acceleration stalled under NL and only worsened post crisis ...... as claimed earlier. Don't you believe that creating nearly two million (1.8) new jobs would have a more marked effect on the graph than is actually shown? Post (long) recession it should be expected that recovery does improve living standard ...... alas austerity measures ensured it didn't. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 3 2015, 10:55 PM Post #450 |
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Are you alluding to Camerons dishonesty or are you speaking in tongues? I cant quite get the drift of your post. |
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| Affa | Aug 3 2015, 11:03 PM Post #451 |
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My bad ....... the person(s) it applies to will know what is being said. edit .... in essence I am aware that a good number of Tory supports were dismayed at the direction that D Cameron 'said' he was taking the party (2005). They did however recognise that it was necessary in order to raise the party's election chances and so accepted it and him ....... in the expectation (realised) that once elected there would be a return to established Tory values. The reply was made to the remark made that compromising ones ethics in order to curry favour is dishonest and lacking in integrity. Edited by Affa, Aug 3 2015, 11:13 PM.
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| Ewill | Aug 3 2015, 11:14 PM Post #452 |
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Not all public sector workers hold your innate worship of trades unions , the Labour Party , Blair , Brown and lefty nanny state views Many are more sensible and believe that they can spend their earnings far more sensibly than governments who waste large amounts of taxes on non contributors |
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| Affa | Aug 3 2015, 11:20 PM Post #453 |
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I despised what the Trade Unions became ...... even knowing that their grievances were often justified. |
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| C-too | Aug 4 2015, 08:14 AM Post #454 |
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That would include ten years of NL and three years of international meltdown. IIRC 1.6 million people taken out of poverty before the international meltdown hit. That included 1m pensioners and 600,000 children. During the pre-meltdown period the rich got richer quicker than the poor with the gap being increased to some extent by rich people coming to our shores where the pickings appeared to be good. The general direction was for most people to become richer and more comfortable, if for no other reason just the fact that unemployment fell well below 2m after 18 years of high unemployment which saw unemployment between 3m+ and two million plus, except for a very short period around 1990. NL were somewhat hamstrung by the Deregulation/Financial Services/Free Market economic approach introduced by the Tories. With millions of skilled and semi-skilled workers thrown onto the unskilled market we saw many new jobs being introduced in the low paid sector. The introduction of the minimum wage increased the income for many people. |
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| RJD | Aug 4 2015, 08:53 AM Post #455 |
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Prudence and Thrift
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Usual spin. Tell us when it was that we saw the highest level of total employment from the available stock? Tell us about the state of the economy pre-1997 GE? Was it growing jobs and growing revenues? Tell us about the fact that the economy is dynamic in the physical sense and that stimuli take years to work their way through. So in a way, all those good years before Brown went bonkers can be claimed, in part, be due to Ken Clarke's actions. In the same way Osborne can claim that his difficulties in reducing State spending to meet current revenues was due to Brown pumping up State consumption based on borrowing. Oh yes do not confuse infrastructure spending which was paid for by off-balance PFI, pumped up to ~£300b and also a current burden, with that of running costs. I know you like this slight of hand as you, even after correction at least half a dozen times, seek to spin again and again. Finally tell us all about the timing of the justifications for pumping up State spending and why these were always years after the commitments to do so? C2 you really do have a hard job white washing over all that BS. Why not just recognise the truth? |
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| Steve K | Aug 4 2015, 09:23 AM Post #456 |
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Once and future cynic
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You suggest that NL with the largest majority in living memory were "hamstrung" by the previous government. Come on please do better than that ridiculous assertion. Everyone knows they chose to not just embrace the prior deregulation but deregulate further. And you really should have looked at the graph clsely before posting in hope that something was true when actually it wasn't. Take a look at Income inequality figures of the time and annex B table B1 Income inequality grew under NL and especially under Brown's boom - fact. It actually reduced after the bust hit. |
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| RJD | Aug 4 2015, 09:39 AM Post #457 |
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Prudence and Thrift
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It is also interesting to look at changes in net disposable, Table B1, which shows an increase between 1979 and 1997 and relatively flat thereafter. The report shows that C2 needs to stop making his unfounded claims. He should also look closely at the quanta improvements that allow him to make spurious claims of NL lifting so many out of poverty. A few Pence allow such a claim. A reduction in average wage allows such a claim. The claim is bogus, especially when refering to child poverty as there is an assumption that extra Pennies to parents trickle down as extra for children and that is unproven. |
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| C-too | Aug 4 2015, 05:58 PM Post #458 |
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The claim is wrong when people who should know better include the meltdown years in their assessments. Are you suggesting that a million? more people in employment did not lift people out of poverty ? Or that increased child allowance, working tax credits, the minimum wage, winter fuel allowances and such like did not improve the financial circumstances of many people ? With wages and salaries increasing as the rich got richer it would take more than a few pence to take people out of R/poverty. |
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| Steve K | Aug 4 2015, 06:40 PM Post #459 |
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Once and future cynic
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Excuse me but can you tell us just who held a gun to your head and forced you to post "NL were somewhat hamstrung by the Deregulation/Financial Services/Free Market economic approach introduced by the Tories." As otherwise you do seem to be trying to contradict yourself and blame others for it and would that not seem ridiculous? Labour increased the rich poor income divide, you attempted to falsely allege that was only in the last years and you have been proved wrong by the link given above - surely best to just accept that and move on. |
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| Affa | Aug 4 2015, 10:50 PM Post #460 |
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Please look at your graph again and take note of what happened after 1979 ![]() Then take further note of what happened after 1997. And apologise to us all. |
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| Steve K | Aug 4 2015, 10:58 PM Post #461 |
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Once and future cynic
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Please read Table B1 of the previously posted link in post 521 above for gross income and disposable income after NL took power and then you'll realise you should apologise to me for that post ^ with its inferred slur http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN03870.pdf Edited by Steve K, Aug 4 2015, 10:59 PM.
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| Affa | Aug 4 2015, 11:14 PM Post #462 |
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I refer you to page 11 of that link. And this from page 10.
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| C-too | Aug 5 2015, 06:35 AM Post #463 |
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Nonsense, so do stop with your condescending attitude. I have NEVER claimed or even suggested that the rich poor divide did not grow under NL. I have often argued in the past that under NL the rich got richer quicker than the poor got richer, and that was unlike in the previous Tory years when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. I also claim that to include the meltdown years in the assessment is misleading because economic circumstances changed for people at many different economic levels after the meltdown. As I explained earlier, NL were somewhat hamstrung by the economic die cast by the Tories. |
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| C-too | Aug 5 2015, 07:06 AM Post #464 |
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31847943 --- ""The Gini has been around for a very long time, and it's very technically sound if you want to measure income inequality across the whole population," explains Andy Sumner, director of the International Development Institute at Kings College, London. "But one might say the Gini is oversensitive to changes in the middle, and under sensitive at the extremes." The coefficient doesn't capture very explicitly changes in the top 10% - which has become the focus of much inequality research in the past 10 years - or the bottom 40%, where most poverty lies. As a result, Sumner and colleague Alex Cobham put forward an alternative - the Palma ratio - which does. "We tried to come up with a measure more sensitive to changes at the top which people are more interested in, and which is more intuitive," says Sumner. If the richest 10% of the population has five times the income of the bottom 40%, a country's Palma ratio is 5. The idea is picking up steam. The Palma ratio has since been listed in the OECD rankings of countries' inequality, and in annual UN Human Development reports, alongside the Gini. Whether Corrado Gini's coefficient will last another half century is uncertain." --- It would appear to be the case that the Gini Coefficient does not give an accurate assessment of the reality. |
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| Pro Veritas | Aug 5 2015, 07:33 AM Post #465 |
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Re: Post #536 Ah, the old "existing measures of X make us look bad, so let's change how we measure X" gambit. About what I would expect from a NuLab apparatchik. All The Best |
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| Steve K | Aug 5 2015, 09:35 AM Post #466 |
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Once and future cynic
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Well fair's fair no you didn't. You posted this
Which strongly suggested you were saying it was only the last 3 years that caused the increase so apologies if that wasn't your meaning. Can we assume you now agree that despite the largest majorities in living memory, Labour did actually see the income divide increase? And therefore my original point in post 505 stands. And could you explain that please to Affa who seems obsessed with throwing the irrelevant to discussion Thatcher government into the debate and expects me to apologise. So for Affa here is disposable income Gini (rich poor divide) for the key Labour pre bust years: 1996/7: 34.0 2006/7: 34.5 (which is higher!) I await Affa's apology for his false flag attacks on me |
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| Rich | Aug 5 2015, 10:03 AM Post #467 |
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l9#play Have a listen to the above, it returns us to the thread title, listen to Flip flop Andy Burnham, I still hear no positive thoughts of direction for the Labour movement as a whole, merely soundbites that are unachievable in order to gain false popularity before the leadership election............it begins at 2 and 1/2 minutes in. Edited by Rich, Aug 5 2015, 10:04 AM.
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| C-too | Aug 5 2015, 10:45 AM Post #468 |
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Honourable Member
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I have already agreed that the gap widened under NL. For me the increase in the difference is not the main point. That those in the lower economic areas were acknowledged and helped, unlike during the Tory years when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, is the important factor. Obviously if the rich get rich quicker than the rest then the Gini coefficient will be higher, but that does not tell the full story does it ? In trying to assess NL's period in office I take the first nine years, (not ten as I previously posted) because the slide into the meltdown (2007) meant that Brown was no longer in full control, his decisions were being influenced and forced upon him by unexpected circumstances beyond his control. |
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| Steve K | Aug 5 2015, 11:01 AM Post #469 |
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Once and future cynic
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I'd expect better under a government truly committed to social justice. It just seems that Labour go for symptom treating rather than real action that will have enduring benefit Interesting to see whose government has the overwhelmingly best record on disposable income divide. John Major's
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| C-too | Aug 5 2015, 11:01 AM Post #470 |
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Honourable Member
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More like the often used approach, oh I don't like that bit of information so I'll just denigrate it. If the Gini coefficient lacks efficiency when it comes to the top economic 10% and ditto for the bottom economic 40% I would have thought you might have been interested in seeing things from a different angle. The term NuLab and apparatchik is a contradiction in terms. |
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| C-too | Aug 5 2015, 11:08 AM Post #471 |
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There will be different opinions on how best to deal with the economic problems of the low paid, we have seen Brown's way of dealing with it. With 20/20 hindsight how might you have dealt with it ? With the callousness of the Thatcher government as a starting point, I wouldn't think it would be too difficult for Major to improve things. |
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| Steve K | Aug 5 2015, 11:53 AM Post #472 |
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Once and future cynic
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Yes the staggering rise in Gini under Thatcher was appalling. She was the 'Queen of Greed is good' and the Baroness of 'Whatever you can get is OK by me no matter who gets hurt' To your question: what would I have done? First some background and then my manifesto: I believe that in times where our standard of living depends so much on world trade in goods and food we are going to have to accept that worldwide standards of living will and should equalise more. Put bluntly our days as a G8 or even G20 economy are numbered. But that transition does not have to be painful and certainly not levelled most on the poor or by reducing UK living standards. IMHO we have some fundamental faults we have to correct, in particular order: - a Welfare system is good but to implement it just as a safety net level imposes 100% or higher marginal net tax rates on those who try to better themselves by working where and when they can. I would lower the safety net and taper the benefit erosion for working. I would not have a benefit cap per se but I would end the more kids = bigger free house and more money system. - we have to stop using 1950s models of employment, step back and look at the reality of what the workforce and employer collective does. It takes people off or reduces their burden on the state, it increases social engagement for many, it makes money for employees, employers and shareholders and it net benefits UK ltd. Why on earth would be want to burden that with taxes and especially those that discourage employment and encourage retail in imported goods? Why on earth would we give tax rebates to those that implement redundancies? I would raise VAT to its highest net collectable level (~30% for most, 10% for basics), end employers NI, reduce corporation tax to lowest in the EU, end most corporation tax exemptions and instead allow employers to remove their net redundancy liability from taxable bottom line. I would then end the lower tax rates for share dividends over £100 a year. - I would introduce a wealth tax by ending the cap on council tax, ensuring that capital gains on shareholdings was paid at full income tax rates and requiring shares and other assets of significant value to be fully taxed on death (ie no inheritance tax exemption would apply to luxuries, company ownership, gold, supercars etc) - I would combine NI and income tax but (to encourage job creating talent to stay in the UK) with a maximum rate of 45%. I would increase the old age tax allowance to compensate most pensioners and the basic tax allowance to the current NMW - I would CUT the NMW but see welfare and incentives to work above. I would bar jobs below 2/3 of the so called living wage from EU migrants and bar any employer with an average wage below the so called living wage from receiving government contracts and then link MPs salaries to the incomes of the bottom 10% of the working age population. There you go, throw bricks at that |
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| Rich | Aug 5 2015, 01:47 PM Post #473 |
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" and then link MPs salaries to the incomes of the bottom 10% of the working age population." I have never been interested in other peoples salaries/wages.....but I certainly will not disagree with that proposal.
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| Affa | Aug 5 2015, 06:58 PM Post #474 |
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In post 505 505 You stated income inequality continued to rise throughout the 13 years of government. That is false ...... it was actually reducing prior to the debt crisis. Rising after it as recessions always do impact more on the low paid than on the wealthy. In that post you blamed socialist policies (wrongly) for adding to the disparity, and reject the addition of data that demonstrates it was Tory policy that created this now huge disparity. I asked you to look again at the link you put and note page 11 ..... page 11 reveals that under Labour it was the second quintile group (second poorest) that saw the largest increase in income over those years ....... and that the differences (disparity) was very slight across the whole range. The fact that latterly the gap has narrowed slightly has more to do with escaping recession than it has to changes in Tory policies on wealth distribution. There isn't a committed Tory poster here (not even RJD) that demonstrates as much bias towards them as you have done on this thread. |
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| Affa | Aug 5 2015, 07:08 PM Post #475 |
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Economic fortunes took a turn for the better (UK) on the signing of the Maastricht treaty ........ the Single market agreement that revised UK fortunes and resulted in massive inward investment from outside the EU but wanting to access this newly created economic bloc - the largest (value) in the world. There was no change of Tory heart towards improving the lot of the low paid under J Major ..... |
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| Nonsense | Aug 5 2015, 07:17 PM Post #476 |
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Affa,I think that you owe an apology to Steve K. Look at the graph AGAIN. On the LEFT HAND SIDE of the graph chart,there is an arrow indicating increasing\decreasing equality according to the direction or LEVEL of the graph for the particular period, 'inequality' INCREASES when the graph RISES & DECREASES when the graph is LOWER. As indicated by the GRAPH post 1979, the graph RISES, indicating INCREASING INEQUALITY.
Edited by Nonsense, Aug 5 2015, 07:24 PM.
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| Affa | Aug 5 2015, 07:46 PM Post #477 |
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I agree with all you say barring the need to apologise ........ you state what I have been saying, and what Steve fails to acknowledge. The graph even shows that in Labour's second term inequality was in decline. Steve has called this inequality as having a 'socialist' consequence, a product of Labour policy - he couldn't be more wrong. |
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| Steve K | Aug 5 2015, 07:47 PM Post #478 |
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Once and future cynic
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No I did not post such. I actually posted "First: 13 years of Labour actually made the income inequality worse." Copy it out enough times in your best crayon and eventually the penny will drop and you'll see the difference
Not really, in 2007/8 disposable income inequality was higher than in 2002/3 and no lower than in 1997/8 And it got worse just after. From one of your favourite sources http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/comm124.pdf pge 2
So post all the bollocks and incorrect quotes you like, the fact remains that income inequality increased under Labour |
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| Affa | Aug 5 2015, 08:02 PM Post #479 |
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You still refuse to acknowledge page 11 of your link which shows that quintile group 2, the second poorest group, saw their gain in income increase the most under that Labour government - or that across the entire spectrum there was little disparity .... compare to the eighteen years of Conservatism .... the wealthiest saw their gain in income increase by MORE THAN TWICE as much as the lowest two groups. We know why your ignore this ...... |
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| Steve K | Aug 5 2015, 08:07 PM Post #480 |
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Once and future cynic
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Go on tell us why the then Is it because the recognised measure of inequality is Gini and not cherry picking second quintiles? Is it because the same chart clearly shows the lower quintile losing out? Is it both? File your post under desperately trying to falsify an argument See also next post |
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