Did we start talking about Labour wanting to do too many things close together on the day or the day before the manifesto link?

You could see it coming. And it wouldn't stop there. There'd be more and more issues they'd address immediately regardless of cost. They'd be better off offering a few policies rather than lots, but this is a popularity manifesto rather than one for an election. He's used the Lib Dem classic. Offer what you know you'll never have to.

Hang on, this manifesto was leaked when? Wednesday? And this 'Thatcherite think tank' has already been able to fully go through the numbers and figure it all out?

Not to mention, the leak was only a supposed draft, not a fully costed final document?

Looking at their breakdown, I notice that nationalisation is all grouped together under one lump as well, instead of being split across energy companies/railways (apart from Royal Mail). It's just there in one lump. They're saying the gap is £30billion yet that cost is just under £50billion.

So, say in their four years Labour does everything except nationalisation. That article says that scrapping tuition fees, adding more police/prison officers/ border guards, funding the NHS, funding schools, renationalising Royal Mail, building council houses etc. is (using their figures) all achievable, and whats more with £20billion leftover. That sounds like an excellent outcome for the country. Does anyone disagree with any of those things? If you achieved half of those things I would still be pleased.

I'd also love to know what their split between railways and energy companies is, because given the way they've made an effort to make it sound like one huge unachievable sum, I wouldn't be surprised if one or the other option was below £20billion and would therefore fit under their figure. So you could still potentially also nationalise one or the other, on top of all the other promises.

Or you know, you could have a Tory manifesto that isn't worth the paper it's printed on either. No National Insurance rise (who cares if there was then a second U-turn, they still wanted to do it)? Running at a surplus by 2020? Cutting immigration to 'tens of thousands'? Committing to the single market?

Hang on, this manifesto was leaked when? Wednesday? And this 'Thatcherite think tank' has already been able to fully go through the numbers and figure it all out?

Not to mention, the leak was only a supposed draft, not a fully costed final document?

Looking at their breakdown, I notice that nationalisation is all grouped together under one lump as well, instead of being split across energy companies/railways (apart from Royal Mail). It's just there in one lump. They're saying the gap is £30billion yet that cost is just under £50billion.

So, say in their four years Labour does everything except nationalisation. That article says that scrapping tuition fees, adding more police/prison officers/ border guards, funding the NHS, funding schools, renationalising Royal Mail, building council houses etc. is (using their figures) all achievable, and whats more with £20billion leftover. That sounds like an excellent outcome for the country. Does anyone disagree with any of those things? If you achieved half of those things I would still be pleased.

I'd also love to know what their split between railways and energy companies is, because given the way they've made an effort to make it sound like one huge unachievable sum, I wouldn't be surprised if one or the other option was below £20billion and would therefore fit under their figure. So you could still potentially also nationalise one or the other, on top of all the other promises.

Or you know, you could have a Tory manifesto that isn't worth the paper it's printed on either. No National Insurance rise (who cares if there was then a second U-turn, they still wanted to do it)? Running at a surplus by 2020? Cutting immigration to 'tens of thousands'? Committing to the single market?

Pity Blair din't have Corbyn's ideas and plans back in '97. He didn't have the balls to implement radical social policy for the benefit of the majority in his own country but did have the balls to help invade a pretty defenceless one. UK could, would have been more at ease with itself today.

That's why we voted The Tories out back then but a worse lot of 'em are in power now and for the next five years.

They will drag the place down even further.

I know you don't need global demand to increase government spending. I don't need demand in products to hire a gardener or decorator or more relevant, a private carer for a relative.

The problem with large increases in government spending is that the effects wear off if it's increasing supply of public amenities only. They don't increase economic growth for very long.

I agree with investment and government spending now and going back a few years, but not in 2008, 2010, and for a handful of years after. And what would you or Ed Balls have done if there was another global economic crisis? Claim theory was right and it's not your fault?

Edited by Rudi Hedman (12 May 2017 10.17am)