Was Gordon Brown Partially Responsible For Labour’s Defeat In The 2019 General Election?
When automatic enrolment into pensions came in, I was very much in favour, as I feel everybody should have a pension.
There is a section called Automatic Enrolment in the Wikipedia entry called Pensions in the United Kingdom.
If you read the section, this is the last paragraph.
Between the introduction of auto enrolment and April 2016, “the overall proportion of eligible employees saving into a workplace pension increased from 55% to 78%” with the largest increases found in the private sector.
Consider.
- When I started work in the 1960s, the average man and the few women on the factory floor weren’t very well educated. But now, they are much more likely to have a few good qualifications.
- Most too will be computer-savvy to a level, that would have been unimaginable to their forerunners in the 1960s.
- Newpapers too, from the Sun and the Mirror to the Times, \guardian, Telegraph and FT, now offer easy-to-read financial advice to help everyone manage their money better.
Many working people today have a pension, that although some didn’t want it, they probably feel could be a help in retirement.
So did Labour’s reckless or ambitious spending plans, frighten many of their traditional supporters?
They certainly frightened me!
Would the election result have been different, if Gordon Brown hadn’t started the modern pension with the Pensions Act of 2008 and had left well enough alone?
As my quote said earlier in 2016, just over three-quarters of eligible employees are saving into a workplace pension.
Some may have been subscribing for over ten years now and they will feel protective of that amount pf money!
I’m Fed Up With Former Or Current Labour MPs Saying They Feel Sorry For Their Constituents
They feel sorry, that everybody will now have at least five years of a Tory government.
But surely, these former and current MPs are partly to blame.
Many of my friends, who have been Labour supporters for decades have kept reminding me of the state of the Labour Party for some time and have just given up.
Many of these MPs now feeling sorry, must have know about the incompetents at the top and their suicidal policies that don’t work.
So why didn’t they change the leadership, which even now seems reluctant to go?
But then Marxists don’t resign like other incompetents.
Jeremy Corbyn: ‘I Will Not Lead Labour At Next Election’
This quote of Jeremy Corbyn is the title of this article on the BBC.
This is the first three paragraphs.
Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not lead Labour into the next election, following a “very disappointing night” for his party.
He said he would stay on as leader during a “process of reflection” on the result, which a BBC forecast says will be its worst for decades.
He added that the issue of Brexit had “polarised” politics and “overridden so much of normal political debate”.
The article also says others in Labour, blame his leadership.
Corbyn should realise that his ultra-Marxist agenda and fence-sitting on Brexit, has been overwhelmingly rejected by the electorate.
He should resign now and retire to his allotment.
But then Marxists don’t resign, they hang on and make matters worse!
Do The British Like Marxism?
If the Exit Poll produced by the BBC, ITV and Sky is correct, the Tories will have a majority of 86.
In the General Election of 1983, Michael Foot, who was not as far to the left as Jeremy Corbyn won 209 seats.
The Exit Poll is showing that Corbyn will win only 191 seats.
I don’t think the British public like Marxism, especially when it comes from someone in London, who went to a posh school.
Labour Pledges To Cut Rail Fares By A Third
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Labour has announced plans to slash rail fares by 33% and simplify ticket prices for part-time workers if it wins the election on 12 December.
The party also wants to make train travel free for young people under the age of 16 and build a central online booking portal with no booking fees.~
In other reports on the Internet, the cost is given at £1.5 billion and it would be paid for from existing transport budgets. Really!
Labour’s plan would have two immediate effects.
- More people would be using the trains and there would a need for much more investment to provide the extra capacity
- But the train companies would be unprofitable and would hand the franchises back, as they would effectively be bankrupt.
The government would probably want that, but would Bombardier, CAF, Siemens et al continue to supply the new trains needed to British Rail at prices determined by the government?
This Labour proposal has echoes of Saddiq Khan’s fare freeze to get elected as London Mayor, which has caused investment in London’s transport system to be delayed or cancelled.
The Old Order Changeth Yielding Place To New
Two dinosaurs; the Labour Party and the motor industry, got big shocks yesterday.
But both are trying to live in the past with CEOs, who still think that we’re in the 1960s.
This morning, my message read out on Wake Up To Money was this.
I don’t drive any more, but the future is electric and the UK is blessed with a position and a climate to become one of the first countries to power most vehicles with renewables. Vehicle manufacturers must change or die!
Our renewable electricity generation infrastructure is growing apace and in the last few days, the world’s largest offshore wind farm opened, as reported in this article on the BBC, which is entitled First Power From World’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm.
The Hornsea Wind Farm will have a generating capacity of 6 GW. This is nearly twice as large a capacity as the troubled Hinckley Point C nuclear power station.
But whereas Hinckley Point C will produce continuous power, Hornsea will only produce power when the wind blows.
The National Grid are tasked with keeping the lights on and I agree with them, that energy storage is the solution.
- There are 25,000,000 homes in the UK. If every house in the UK was fitted with a 10 kWh storage battery, that would be a capacity of 250 GWH.
- There are 30,000,000 cars in the UK. If every car in the UK was electric and had a 30 kWh battery, that would be a capacity of 900 GWH.
These are very large numbers and just as the Internet passes data all around the UK and the world, the UK’s National Grid will access all these batteries to store energy, when perhaps the wind is blowing at night and retrieve it when there is a high demand.
On a domestic level, you may have an electric car and a battery in your house, with perhaps solar panels on the roof.
- At night and on sunny days, your batteries will be charged.
- At times of high demand, your stored energy may be sold back to the grid.
- Controlling it all would be an intelligent computer system, which would make sure that your car always had enough charge and you had enough energy for the house.
The problem is that nearly all of our houses and cars don’t fit this model.
The proposed closure of the Honda plant is Swindon, is the first of the many casualties in car manufacturing, that will surely happen.
More by luck, than judgement, when I moved to London after my stroke, I bought a house with the following features.
- Low energy consumption.
- A flat roof, that is now covered in solar panels.
- A garage, that would be suitable for an electric car. Although, I don’t drive, the next owner of this house, probably will.
Millions of houses in this country should be demolished and the land used for new houses that fit the modern age.
The Labour Party is living in the 1960s and Corbyn and McDonell still believe that the Robin Hood approach of stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor, is still the way to go.
But these days, most people want to be responsible for themselves. This is why there has been such a growth in people in the gig economy like Uber, Deliveroo and County Lines.
Everybody wants to take control of their lives and their own micro-economy. That is why I left a safe job at ICI in 1969, at the age of just twenty-two.
Like me, those who start their own successful business don’t want government to come along and use it on pet projects that always seem to fail.
Most politicians and especially Labour ones have never done a real job in their lives and Labour’s defections will hopefully be the first of many from all political parties.
I hope that February 18th 2019, will be remembered as the day when two dinosaurs realised they needed to change their spots.
But they won’t change willingly!
However!
- Companies and individuals will soon be buying electric vehicles in large numbers and only buying diesel and petrol ones, where there is no alternative.
- Voters will not vote for policies that stink of the past, that don’t fit their micro-economy.
There will also be a lot of unsaleable houses and second-hand cars!
Labour Alienates The Jews And Drivers And Owners Of Diesel Vehicles
I come from mixed Jewish/Huguenot lines and my philosophy is probably humanist, although I’m a confirmed atheist.
But if I’m wrong, finding Heaven could be a bonus when I die!
This article on the BBC is entitled Labour ruling ‘fails Jewish community’, says Chief Rabbi.
Individuals, like Livingstone have no place in an inclusive political party.
This article on the BBC is entitled Date announced for London ultra low emission zone.
I am not against the ultra low emission zone, just the way that it is being brought in unilaterally in London.
We need ultra low emission zones all over the country and there is many things we can do.
- Cross-city railways and trams.
- More hybrid and electric buses when they are available at an affordable cost.
- Park-and-ride facilities.
- Trucks should be more environmentally and cyclist friendly.
- Grants will probably be needed to scrap older diesel vehicles and invest in new trucks and buses.
The one thing that is right is to bring in the zone in 2019, which will be just after the Central London section of Crossrail has opened.
There needs to be measures from Central Government, but as ever, staying in power comes first.
I have a feeling that London’s ultra low emission zone will not be good for Sadiq Khan in London, as it’s going to cause inconvenience for many in London.
I’m Rather Pleased We’ve Now Got Fixed Term Parliaments
On Sunday morning, I usually watch the Andrew Marr Show and then listen to Pienaar’s Politics on the radio.
- Jeremy Corbyn didn’t give the sort of performance one would expect from a future Prime Minister.
- Aaron Banks, who supports UKIP, frightened me, with his support for the party of neck-enders.
- I didn’t like the treatment Angela Eagle says she is getting from Corbyn supporters.
The only sane voices were the two women, who reviewed the papers on the Andrew Marr Show.
One was so disillusioned with the Labour Party, she has decided to be a stand-up comedian. She certainly got plenty of material.
At least because we should wait to 2020 for the next General Election, there is time for everything to calm down.
Corbyn Courts The Jewish Vote
This article on the Jewish Chronicle is entitled How the unveiling of Labour’s antisemitism report turned into a Corbyn calamity. This is the first paragraph.
It was the political equivalent of running into a burning building with a can of petrol and liberally chucking the fuel over anything you could find.
What Jeremy Corbyn did this morning almost defied belief. Even in these extraordinary times, it was an act of such reckless abandon that veteran political correspondents watched open-mouthed.
Mr Corbyn came to the launch of his party’s report into antisemitism, conducted by Shami Chakrabarti, after the worst week of his decades-long political career.
I’d gone to their web site to get a digest after reading the various tweets after the Jewish MP; Ruth Smeeth was abused.
I’m not Jewish, but I have Jewish genes, so I certainly wouldn’t vote for the Labour Party, even if they were the only non-Fascist candidate.
For The Female Of The Species Is More Deadly Than The Male
This report in the Telegraph is entitled Labour supporters boo and hiss at BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg during Jeremy Corbyn’s EU speech. This is an extract.
Labour supporters booed and hissed when the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg was called for a question during a Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on the EU.
Earlier this week it emerged Mr Corbyn had criticised the Corporation’s coverage of his leadership during a behind-the-scenes documentary by Vice News.
Perhaps because I’m sometimes a man of manners, booing somebody just because they’re reporting the news, isn’t on.
But today ths report by Laura has appeared on the BBC web site, which is entitled Corbyn office ‘sabotaged’ EU Remain campaign – sources.
This is an extract.
And documents passed to the BBC suggest Jeremy Corbyn’s office sought to delay and water down the Labour Remain campaign. Sources suggest that they are evidence of “deliberate sabotage”.
One email from the leader’s office suggests that Mr Corbyn’s director of strategy and communications, Seumas Milne, was behind Mr Corbyn’s reluctance to take a prominent role in Labour’s campaign to keep the UK in the EU. One email, discussing one of the leader’s speeches, said it was because of the “hand of Seumas. If he can’t kill it, he will water it down so much to hope nobody notices it”.
A series of messages dating back to December seen by the BBC shows correspondence between the party leader’s office, the Labour Remain campaign and Labour HQ, discussing the European campaign. It shows how a sentence talking about immigration was removed on one occasion and how Mr Milne refused to sign off a letter signed by 200 MPs after it had already been approved.
Read the whole article and see how Laura knows how to get her own back!
As if that wasn’t enough Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey have called for a vote of confidence in the Labour Leader.
|Does Jeremy Corbyn have a problem with the female of the species?
At least we now know a couple of idiots, who were partly responsible for the Brexit vote! A bit of support for Labour Remain supporters, might just have swung the vote.
It was like fighting Muhammed Ali, with one hand tied behind your back!
The Anonymous Widower 