What no jeremy cobyn thread?

the poll
it's polled, I don't normally pick up on spelling errors on the internet - but when someone is pretending to be so superior and their grasp of their own language is so weak, it seems only fair (just like on all those badly spelled racist internet memes, people telling me I'm stupid because I don't understand how dangerous foriners are.


(there's not a chance that...... is there?)
And there you go again with unfounded accusations.
Back on topic, less than 1800 people in a poll is hardly representative of what the public wants.
 
You seem to have neglected the bit that tells a different story, Labour did not cut the defence budget nor reduce the number of armed forces,neither did they neglect repairing the fleet and aircraft in the Med bases and elsewhere, they did not introduce G4S to replace the police force and neither did Labour cut police numbers..... however JC is a threat to national security? nah, I think DC is a greater threat mate.
There is a huge difference between reduction and removal.
 
And there you go again with unfounded accusations.
Back on topic, less than 1800 people in a poll is hardly representative of what the public wants.
Clearly you know more about polling samples than YouGov.

Apologies; I do forget how awesome your intellect is sometimes.
 
German has the 50% income tax rate on high earners as you mentioned them. They also have rental control and huge state ownership. Hardly what you would call a loonie left country.

They also have a federal system and proportional representation which ensures more consensus politics representative of a majority of their electorate and giving people more reason to vote for what they believe in than the UK first past the post system which allows relatively small percentages of the electorate to achieve healthy working majorities.

This use of PR and proper federalism helps to avoid loony governments of either the left or right, or perhaps of the far right and centre right which is where we appear to be now

German companies also have automatic employee representation on the board of companies with more than 500 employees varying from 1/3 to 1/2 of board positions when 2000 or more employees involved.

Germany simply has devolved power to a greater number of citizens and put in place mechanisms to reduce abuse of power.

I'm not a fan of what they did to Greece but I can see pointers to the principles of how the UK could perhaps be governed in a better manner and be more representative at all levels.
 
And there you go again with unfounded accusations.
Back on topic, less than 1800 people in a poll is hardly representative of what the public wants.

So how many do think you need?
 
German has the 50% income tax rate on high earners as you mentioned them. They also have rental control and huge state ownership. Hardly what you would call a loonie left country.

They also have a much higher level of corporation tax - 33% vs 18% I believe.
 
German companies also have automatic employee representation on the board of companies with more than 500 employees varying from 1/3 to 1/2 of board positions when 2000 or more employees involved.

Yes i was also going to mention this but i was on my phone and it would have taken to long :) This piece of legislation is awesome.
 
You seem to have neglected the bit that tells a different story, Labour did not cut the defence budget nor reduce the number of armed forces,neither did they neglect repairing the fleet and aircraft in the Med bases and elsewhere, they did not introduce G4S to replace the police force and neither did Labour cut police numbers..... however JC is a threat to national security? nah, I think DC is a greater threat mate.

You forgot to mention the cutting of the sub hunter aircraft and the rather dumb move of wanting carrier version of JSF.. Only to retract the JSF change at a later date and now looking like changing there mind on sub hunter aircraft.
 
Rapscallion and Jim Tod

Thank you both for helping me put some perspective on JC's polices. Its so much far left Marxist nonsense thrown about everywhere. Although nothings going to change there minds.

We are famous inward looking island nation. Its good to look elsewhere to get some perspective.

P.s Can we through in one of the highest paid too and some of the lowest house prices thanks to increasing house supply.
 
Last edited:
With over 45 million people registered to vote, does less than 1800 people taking part in a poll seem representative of what the UK public wants?

Again, how many do you think you need to get an accurate picture?
 
Whilst it would be nice not to have them, whilst others have them, we need them.
Could you explain why we need them- is it keeping up with the Jones'?

I find it impossible to envision a scenario where a rational sane human being would launch nuclear missiles at another nation knowingly killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people for a decision made by their government. With this in mind we're keeping nuclear weapons until we get an insane person in charge who would condemn these sort of numbers to die.

These weapons are of no use whatsoever in waging war against terror- it may perhaps be relevant to point to the events of 14 years ago this weekend and reflect that America has much larger numbers of nuclear weapons than the UK yet these weapons did them no good in stopping or retaliating against a terrorist attack.

We're therefore left with conventional war. There are 9 recognised countries with nuclear weapons out of 193 recognised states in the UN. Within the 28 independent states forming NATO, we have 3 who are recognised with nuclear weapons. If it was as simple as 'if others have them we must have them' then significantly more countries would have nucelar weapons

The only rational reason that the UK wishes to retain nuclear weapons is to retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and still be seen as a big boy despite the Empire having crumbled or walked away. I personally do not believe that many UK citizens care about a permanent seat on the UN security council but the political classes do as it determines whether they get to jet off and meet other people and opens up opportunities for employment after politics.

I've tried to lay out my position on nuclear weapons but would be quite happy to take some more info on the reason why a nuclear version of keeping up with the Jones' is the right thing for our austerity stricken country
 
I find it impossible to envision a scenario where a rational sane human being would launch nuclear missiles at another nation knowingly killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people for a decision made by their government.
Nor can I but until there is unilateral disarmament no one ( in there right mind) will destroy their deterrent first.
Tis human nature.

Consider this, I've lived in the same house for many years, both my neighbours have been broken into, the attached one, once, the near neighbour twice.
There is no outwardly difference appearance of the houses, we are roughly the same age & drive similar value cars.
The only difference was that I had a bloody great GSD, (as someone once said, that's not a dog its a bloody horse!) who had the habit of standing up with her paws on the window sill as people passed close by.
Would she have attacked had they come through the door? Possibly, but they had no way of knowing either way, so took what they considered the safer option.
 
With over 45 million people registered to vote, does less than 1800 people taking part in a poll seem representative of what the UK public wants?

It is a very good sample size as far as I can see after using a sample size calculator.

This link:-
http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html

Says you need 385 samples to get 5% margin of error with a 95% confidence. So a sample size of around 1800 seems much more than adequate.
 
And there you go again with unfounded accusations.
Back on topic, less than 1800 people in a poll is hardly representative of what the public wants.

Am I supposed to find it funny, that you say it's an unfounded accusation?

Just the other week, you told us all that you were more of an expert on benefit fraud than the government department responsible for benefits (even though it's got 50 years of data and employs thousands of people to make sure it's getting it right)

And here you are telling us that you know more about opinion polling than YouGov...
With over 45 million people registered to vote, does less than 1800 people taking part in a poll seem representative of what the UK public wants?

That is either a misjudged estimate of your intelligence (to the point of delusion), you genuinely are a genius of unprecedented proportions, or you just make this stuff up for giggles.

Put us out of our misery; which one is it?
 
Again, how many do you think you need to get an accurate picture?
Well if they can get 60% in favour from 80% of the electorate, that should about do it, but at 60% of just such a small number as less than 1800, it's hardly representative and not worth mentioning.
 
German has the 50% income tax rate on high earners as you mentioned them. They also have rental control and huge state ownership. Hardly what you would call a loonie left country.

What is classed as a high earner. What are their tax and vat rates etc. Would not be against a higher rate but think that the 40% rate needs to be decreased or move the salary up to make it fairer. Like I said, with some controls I would be in favor of state ownership.
 
With over 45 million people registered to vote, does less than 1800 people taking part in a poll seem representative of what the UK public wants?

I think most polls are around that number.
 
Well if they can get 60% in favour from 80% of the electorate, that should about do it, but at 60% of just such a small number as less than 1800, it's hardly representative and not worth mentioning.
Except 1800 is representative, because they're experts and they know what a representative sample looks like, because... well they're a company with a revenue of £67m in 2014 who's only revenue stream is from selling their polling services.

But I suppose what do they know, you're a bloke with an opinion that may or may not be borne out by their findings, so chances are they're wrong.
 
Am I supposed to find it funny, that you say it's an unfounded accusation?

Just the other week, you told us all that you were more of an expert on benefit fraud than the government department responsible for benefits (even though it's got 50 years of data and employs thousands of people to make sure it's getting it right)

And here you are telling us that you know more about opinion polling than YouGov...


That is either a misjudged estimate of your intelligence (to the point of delusion), you genuinely are a genius of unprecedented proportions, or you just make this stuff up for giggles.

Put us out of our misery; which one is it?
I never claimed to be an expert on benefit fraud. Another of your delusions you are trying to impress on others. Why do you feel you have to resort to personal attacks? I can think of many reasons, kindest being, it's a sign of someone losing an argument.

As for misjudged estimate, did you actually read what was in your own link?
It says a sample size of 1736 GB Adults. Now that tells me they got their 60% of the GB population wants reprivatisation from just 1736 people which i'm pretty sure is less than 1800 people. and certainly falls well short of around 60% of GB adults or approx. 27million. Of course you're more than welcome to find me a representative number closer to 27million.
 
Except 1800 is representative, because they're experts and they know what a representative sample looks like, because... well they're a company with a revenue of £67m in 2014 who's only revenue stream is from selling their polling services.

But I suppose what do they know, you're a bloke with an opinion that may or may not be borne out by their findings, so chances are they're wrong.
Come on then explain how a sample of less than 1800 people is representative of 45 million. You can hypothetically multiply the 1800 up to 45 million but it doesn't give a true indication of hwat the real result would be, all it gives is an indication of how less than 1800 people would like things to be, now if it was a sample size of 1800 people out of 2000 or 3000 people the representation would be better still not accurate but better.
 
I never claimed to be an expert on benefit fraud. Another of your delusions you are trying to impress on others. Why do you feel you have to resort to personal attacks? I can think of many reasons, kindest being, it's a sign of someone losing an argument.

As for misjudged estimate, did you actually read what was in your own link?
It says a sample size of 1736 GB Adults. Now that tells me they got their 60% of the GB population wants reprivatisation from just 1736 people which i'm pretty sure is less than 1800 people. and certainly falls well short of around 60% of GB adults or approx. 27million. Of course you're more than welcome to find me a representative number closer to 27million.
You told us you didn't believe DWP's figures suggesting you knew more than they. If you didn't mean you knew more, what did you mean.

As above, you're dismissing a YouGov poll despite the fact that they're in business to know what an accurate poll looks like. :thinking: Again - you're an expert and they're not :clap::clap:

But it's me that's deluded. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

And why do you keep calling it reprivatisation, surely it's the opposite? (no need to answer)
So we can tick off the list; 'you genuinely are a genius of unprecedented proportions', leaving one of the others.
 
Put your knobs away lads. Ruining a perfectly good thread.
 
You told us you didn't believe DWP's figures suggesting you knew more than they. If you didn't mean you knew more, what did you mean.

As above, you're dismissing a YouGov poll despite the fact that they're in business to know what an accurate poll looks like. :thinking: Again - you're an expert and they're not :clap::clap:

But it's me that's deluded. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

And why do you keep calling it reprivatisation, surely it's the opposite? (no need to answer)
So we can tick off the list; 'you genuinely are a genius of unprecedented proportions', leaving one of the others.
Come on Phil, you've got him beat on every thing, no need to resort to personal insults. :)
 
Last edited:
Come on then explain how a sample of less than 1800 people is representative of 45 million. You can hypothetically multiply the 1800 up to 45 million but it doesn't give a true indication of hwat the real result would be, all it gives is an indication of how less than 1800 people would like things to be, now if it was a sample size of 1800 people out of 2000 or 3000 people the representation would be better still not accurate but better.
try their website
 
You told us you didn't believe DWP's figures suggesting you knew more than they. If you didn't mean you knew more, what did you mean.

As above, you're dismissing a YouGov poll despite the fact that they're in business to know what an accurate poll looks like. :thinking: Again - you're an expert and they're not :clap::clap:

But it's me that's deluded. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

And why do you keep calling it reprivatisation, surely it's the opposite? (no need to answer)
So we can tick off the list; 'you genuinely are a genius of unprecedented proportions', leaving one of the others.
Once again the personal attacks and insults.
I don't even gave any recollection of posting in a thread about DWP figures, let alone professing to be an expert.
Yet again you fail to tell me why you feel less than 1800 people is representative of 45million people, forget, YOUGOV, I want to see your opinions.
 
Once again the personal attacks and insults.
I think you should be looking at the tone of your own posts before complaining about others.
I don't even gave any recollection of posting in a thread about DWP figures, let alone professing to be an expert.
I do, you clearly inferred that the figures from the DPW were wrong and the real amount of benefit fraud was much higher
Yet again you fail to tell me why you feel less than 1800 people is representative of 45million people, forget, YOUGOV, I want to see your opinions.
I believe that question has been answered in post 614, I'll quote it here for you just in case you missed it ;)
It is a very good sample size as far as I can see after using a sample size calculator.

This link:-
http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html

Says you need 385 samples to get 5% margin of error with a 95% confidence. So a sample size of around 1800 seems much more than adequate.
 
try their website
Can't find anything on their website that supports less than 1800 opinions being a true representation of the voting public, what I do see is a means of people selling their "opinions" with no obligation to actually give a true opinion.
 
Once again the personal attacks and insults.
I don't even gave any recollection of posting in a thread about DWP figures, let alone professing to be an expert.
Yet again you fail to tell me why you feel less than 1800 people is representative of 45million people, forget, YOUGOV, I want to see your opinions.
It's not 'my opinion' though, I don't hold an opinion on the matter, I left it up to YouGov who get paid to get these things right.

My opinion has nothing to do with it, whether I agree with their findings, agree with a majority or not, it's irrelevant. Because the fact is that a YouGov poll found that a decent majority of the British public were in favour of state owned utilities, and that's what I stated earlier.

If they didn't know what they were doing they'd have gone out of business, they get paid a fair chunk of money to find out what people think, I'm happy they know more about that than I do, OTOH, you seem to think you know more than they do, so maybe you're in the wrong job, you should try your hand, I'd guess you never made 67million last year.
 
Can't find anything on their website that supports less than 1800 opinions being a true representation of the voting public, what I do see is a means of people selling their "opinions" with no obligation to actually give a true opinion.
Have you checked their accuracy rate anywhere? they appear to have quite a good record.
 
Would she have attacked had they come through the door? Possibly, but they had no way of knowing either way, so took what they considered the safer option.

The analogy here however would be that after coming home to find yourself burgled you then let your dog loose to savage all the innocent men,woman and children in the neighbourhood of where the burglar stays- just because someone in their vicinity decided to burgle you. Again an insane sort of person to do this and unlikely to stop the burglar in the first instance

Surely a more appropriate analogy to your guard/ attack dog scenario would be that the UK has Special Forces and snipers available for more surgical attacks and an army, navy and air force where the opposition is bigger. We put them on display in the window and don't get attacked surely?
 
The analogy here however would be that after coming home to find yourself burgled you then let your dog loose to savage all the innocent men,woman and children in the neighbourhood of where the burglar stays- just because someone in their vicinity decided to burgle you. Again an insane sort of person to do this and unlikely to stop the burglar in the first instance
Not at all, you missed the point entirely, that she was a deterrent and I didn't need to unleash her,
as the perps walked on by.
If we give up our nukes we no longer have the guard dog, and I like my unprotected neighbours will sooner or later be attacked by those that are jealous of what we have.


Surely a more appropriate analogy to your guard/ attack dog scenario would be that the UK has Special Forces and snipers available for more surgical attacks and an army, navy and air force where the opposition is bigger. We put them on display in the window and don't get attacked surely?
And that's exactly my point, she was on display as are our nukes, and they passed by.
 
Not at all, you missed the point entirely, that she was a deterrent and I didn't need to unleash her,
as the perps walked on by.
If we give up our nukes we no longer have the guard dog, and I like my unprotected neighbours will sooner or later be attacked by those that are jealous of what we have.



And that's exactly my point, she was on display as are our nukes, and they passed by.

We certainly need our nukes but the problem is it is more like a grizzly bear rather than your dog. Keeping one is certainly not cheap for a relatively small country. A Bear is easier to manage for big lads like Putin. I still don't feel like we should give it up but perhaps we should consider a common EU deterrent?

If Corbyn gets his way we will become like Sweden or Denmark - even more irrelevant in the international community with bloody high taxes and heavy handed anti car and anti ownership policies. I say no to all of that.
 
What is classed as a high earner. What are their tax and vat rates etc. Would not be against a higher rate but think that the 40% rate needs to be decreased or move the salary up to make it fairer. Like I said, with some controls I would be in favor of state ownership.

VAT is 19% so very similar.

Income tax is as followed

For 2014 and 2015 a taxable income of less than €8,354 is tax-free for a single person (€16,708 for a married couple). Incomes up to €52,882 for a single person (€105,764 for a couple) are then taxed with a rate progressively increasing from 14% to 42%. Incomes from €52,882 (€105,764) up to €250,730 (€501,460) are taxed at 42%. Incomes over €250,731 for a singe person and €501,462 for a married couple are taxed at 45%. In addition to this there is the "solidarity surcharge" of 5.5% of the tax, to cover the costs of integrating the states of the former East Germany.


Some stats here from numbeo that i see used in press articles quite often.

Consumer Prices in United Kingdom are 27.26% higher than in Germany
Consumer Prices Including Rent in United Kingdom are 33.90% higher than in Germany
Rent Prices in United Kingdom are 53.07% higher than in Germany
Restaurant Prices in United Kingdom are 40.48% higher than in Germany
Groceries Prices in United Kingdom are 41.38% higher than in Germany
Local Purchasing Power in United Kingdom is 20.42% lower than in Germany

If you want to look at capitals

Consumer Prices in London are 46.18% higher than in Berlin
Consumer Prices Including Rent in London are 98.87% higher than in Berlin
Rent Prices in London are 238.96% higher than in Berlin
Restaurant Prices in London are 74.87% higher than in Berlin
Groceries Prices in London are 41.15% higher than in Berlin
Local Purchasing Power in London is 30.93% lower than in Berlin

Its interesting to see they pay more for energy, however they are paving the way for renewables. overall they are much better off than we are.
 
During the early 20th century the Labour movement and Unions fought for workers rights, they gave us weekends, bank holidays, decent wages and health and safety laws that saved millions of lives and debilitating illnesses and injuries
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

The labour movement deserves our thanks for its achievements in the early 20th century. However, that is completely irrelevant when it comes to facing the challenges of the 21st century. We should not justify supporting the labour movement on the basis of its past achievements, any more than we should aspire to be ruled by the Romans again.
 
Because the fact is that a YouGov poll found that a decent majority of the British public were in favour of state owned utilities, and that's what I stated earlier.

If they didn't know what they were doing they'd have gone out of business, they get paid a fair chunk of money to find out what people think, I'm happy they know more about that than I do, OTOH, you seem to think you know more than they do, so maybe you're in the wrong job, you should try your hand, I'd guess you never made 67million last year.
Regardless of what they make per year 60% of 1736 people who bothered to take their poll, is not representative of the British public, they could just as easily hold the same poll again with 1736 different people taking part and get a completely different result. They have no guarantee of a sample size, if companies wish to pay for that and think it will give them the results they require that is up to them.
I'll give you an example, where I used to work the tool room had approximately 100 bench fitters. These were split over two shifts but because some people due to reasons of their own could only work day shift so there was a small imbalance of 2 or 3 people between the two shifts. Ask one shift if they wanted weekend overtime and approximately 50% of them would say yes. Ask the other shift and only around 35% would say yes. That's two similar sized groups giving a different outcome, if you asked another 50 people you'd likely get another answer again. So for that reason 1800 people can not be representative of the British public, all they can be representative of is 1800 people.
 
You seem to have neglected the bit that tells a different story, Labour did not cut the defence budget nor reduce the number of armed forces,neither did they neglect repairing the fleet and aircraft in the Med bases and elsewhere, they did not introduce G4S to replace the police force and neither did Labour cut police numbers..... however JC is a threat to national security? nah, I think DC is a greater threat mate.
Lol. The airforce was 96000 personnel when I was in and new labour reduced it to 42k, options for change, all sorts of fancy names for just reducing our armed forces. Tories didn't do it, bliars party heavy cut the forces.
 
Germany is not a socialist country. Look at Sweden, Finland for better examples.

P.S. I wouldn't compare Berlin with London. Berlin may be a capital but it is hardly a desirable place to live in the concrete towers. Bristol vs. Frankfurt or similar may be a more direct comparison.
 
Back
Top