Ed Miliband. Hero or Bellend?

[Wij]

Price fixing? Seriously?

As if he hadn't fucked up the energy market enough when he was in power he now wants to bollox up the retail side.

FYI - margins on energy at retail are about 5% which is lower than most sectors would operate at.

What do you think FH?

 

[Chilly]

Utilities companies are utterly fucked these days. They've all been private equitie'd and asset stripped. They can no longer afford the capital costs of maintaining their infrastructure as they are in debt up to the neck as it is, the government are being forced to lend/give them money to cover their arses.

As for Milliband's antics - nice sentiment but insane. How is he going to finance any of this stuff? The free childcare I think is an absolute solid gold policy that should be funded, somehow. The rest of it...it's all just posturing to the masses.

 

[Aoami]

I was keen on the attack on Train operator prices and raising the minimum wage inline with inflation. The minimum wage is absolutely crap in this country. I do believe that measures like that cause massive corporations to part with their cash which can only be a good thing for the economy in one sense that people have more money to spend, but obviously they'll try and find a way to cover those costs which will hurt the consumer.

Also forcing housing companies who sit on land to hand it back, i liked that as well.

 

[Wij]

Utilities companies are utterly fucked these days. They've all been private equitie'd and asset stripped. They can no longer afford the capital costs of maintaining their infrastructure as they are in debt up to the neck as it is, the government are being forced to lend/give them money to cover their arses.

That's all true but taking away their ability to control retails is only going to make things worse.

 

[Raven]

He is talking out of his arse like any other politician.

Not one of his policies will come to anything.

Line them all up against a wall and sort it out.

 

[Draylor]

Politicians without a hope in hell of winning can promise anything they like.

His real problem is still being party leader at the time of the next election, not worrying about how he could win it.

Massive bellend, even by the standards of labour politicians.

 

[Embattle]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24238708

 

[Jimmy]

Working for an energy company profit is 5% which alot of that is reinvested in to differnt projects. Alot of a cuatomers bills are made up from gov taxes and transport costs. he is bellend imo

 

[Zarjazz]

Bellend with no personality or coherent policies and who has no idea how to actually fix the energy companies or how business works in general. That probably means he'll win the next election.

 

[Aoami]

Politicians without a hope in hell of winning can promise anything they like.

His real problem is still being party leader at the time of the next election, not worrying about how he could win it.

Massive bellend, even by the standards of labour politicians.

Labour have been ahead in every yougov poll since the start of 2012. How does that equal no chance of winning?

 

[Embattle]

Like many companies they shift profit in certain ways and in the case of most the energy companies it tends to be from retail and in to generation, how much profit they actually make is they questionable. Increased competition would be nice but I doubt it'll result in a massive price differences between companies, continuing to make the system easier in terms of understanding, switching, etc would be nice but one of the primary things that needs to be solved is making sure the generators do actually invest in future generation which isn't likely to happen if you beat generators up to much.

Personally I think he is a bit of a bell end, again he seemed to be looking for the populist vote with the various commitments that generally involved more spending and hopeful savings elsewhere and he utterly ignored anything to do with welfare, NHS, unions, etc.

 

[Job]

Oh it's election time is it?
Politicians promising to make things cheaper?
To give it more than a millisecond of attention is pointless.

What a fucking nasal speaking slimeball, he would be a joke of a prime minister, labour would go back to their
old ways and we'd have that tosser representing Britain on the world stage.

 

[Tom]

Food is more important than energy for the home. So when will Wallace propose the nationalisation of Tesco?

What an idiot. Another politician offering "free" stuff to anyone stupid enough to believe him.

Ask yourself, what does Ed Milliband stand for? I don't think anyone knows, possibly because the question can't be answered with anything other than "nothing".

 

[Himse]

Politics to me is just tosh now. Dick swinging and empty promises.

I doubt, even if he did win the election, he could freeze energy prices.

 

[Aoami]

Food is more important than energy for the home. So when will Wallace propose the nationalisation of Tesco?

What an idiot. Another politician offering "free" stuff to anyone stupid enough to believe him.

Ask yourself, what does Ed Milliband stand for? I don't think anyone knows, possibly because the question can't be answered with anything other than "nothing".

I think he stands for a strong swing to the left. 5 years of austerity under a Tory government and a swing to the left could be exactly what the public are craving and we'll see more lefty policies announced over the next couple of years.

 

[Chilly]

Politics to me is just tosh now. Dick swinging and empty promises.

I doubt, even if he did win the election, he could freeze energy prices.

Me neither. The house of Lords would put up a pretty fucking strong resistance. As would a large portion of his own party and every single tory.

 

[Scouse]

I think he stands for a strong swing to the left.

The left-right axis is no longer even a remotely representative model of politics.

 

[Raven]

I think he stands for a strong swing to the left. 5 years of austerity under a Tory government and a swing to the left could be exactly what the public are craving and we'll see more lefty policies announced over the next couple of years.

It may well be what they crave but it is exactly what will undo what has been achieved so far. We are coming out of the recession, slowly but surely. A Labour government spanking money up the wall like there is no tomorrow would be a disaster, does nobody remember the post-it note saying there was no money left? The tories may not be popular and they may well be despicable cunts but spending cuts are working.

 

[Aoami]

The left-right axis is no longer even a remotely representative model of politics.

I disagree. Just because Labour have become less and less lefty and it's got murky in the middle, doesn't mean there can't be a big swing back. Ed is a socialist and it showed at the conference.

 

[Himse]

The tories may not be popular, but every politician is cut from the same cloth.

 

[Chilly]

The tories may not be popular and they may well be despicable cunts but spending cuts are working.

Except, actually, the spending cuts are fictional. There's been a few billion saved here and there and a CUT to corp tax, income tax, an extension to all sorts of tax breaks for investors (EIS, SEIS - SEIS is a fucking *joke* how generous it is). What's pulling us out of recession is just cyclical behaviour. It's my firm belief the government could have not made a single policy change in the last 10 years and we'd be materially where we are now.

 

[DaGaffer]

Populist bullshit. Most of the problems with the energy companies could be fixed with stronger regulation (e.g. forcing "tracker" style billing related to the market price for gas or oil, simplified tariffs etc.) rather than grandiose price freezes.

The competition issue is more complex; there's definitely a problem with the wholesale market, but retail? Not so much. Milliband's followers are pointing to the telecoms market and how BT had to get more efficient in the face of real competitors, but the analogy doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. There are six retail energy companies accounting for 98% of the market, and in telecoms there are...eight operators accounting for 98% of the market. Big whup, and market consolidation will reduce that number anyway (EE for example).

If Ed Milliband wants to reduce energy prices, he should talking about investing in a broader range of generation options, not dicking around with the end price.

 

[rynnor]

The economy is slowly adjusting by itself but we are many years away from a proper recovery with the defecit much reduced - politicians are largely window dressing - since cameron came in and the govt lurched to the right its only natural that people start to favour a lurch left.

 

[Gumbo]

He was on the Today program yesterday talking about the fixing of energy prices. The interviewer kept pushing him on whether the government would bail out the energy companies if the wholesale price went skywards so they were operating at a loss because of the fixed cost to the consumer with no way out of it. Ed just kept on saying that it wouldn't happen because they had looked at the history of energy prices.

Labour are really fucking stupid and this policy just goes to show that even now they still have a head buried in the sand mentality about everything. We currently have the least worst option in government, please I hope to hell we don't end up with the worst of the worst again in 2015.

 

[rynnor]

He was on the Today program yesterday talking about the fixing of energy prices. The interviewer kept pushing him on whether the government would bail out the energy companies if the wholesale price went skywards so they were operating at a loss because of the fixed cost to the consumer with no way out of it. Ed just kept on saying that it wouldn't happen because they had looked at the history of energy prices.

Labour are really fucking stupid and this policy just goes to show that even now they still have a head buried in the sand mentality about everything. We currently have the least worst option in government, please I hope to hell we don't end up with the worst of the worst again in 2015.

I'm not sure we got the least worst - a coalition of Lab and Lib Dems might have suited us better. Whoever came in would have made some derisory cuts like this lot - in reality we are reducing the defecit in real terms by inflation - its painful because wages arent keeping track but thats the reality.

 

[Tom]

I disagree. Just because Labour have become less and less lefty and it's got murky in the middle, doesn't mean there can't be a big swing back. Ed is a socialist and it showed at the conference.

Funny, when you ask him about reversing the cuts made to the public sector, his response is "mmmmm ahhhh mmmmmm well....." Not very left-wing tbh.

 

[Tom]

Isn't the falling value of the pound a significant factor in energy prices? Caused by the Bank of England printing lots of lovely money?

Are high energy prices really that much of a problem, compared to, say, buying a cheap house, or paying for childcare? A couple of hundred quid saved on an annual household budget isn't really worth all this discussion IMO.

 

[DaGaffer]

Isn't the falling value of the pound a significant factor in energy prices? Caused by the Bank of England printing lots of lovely money?

Are high energy prices really that much of a problem, compared to, say, buying a cheap house, or paying for childcare? A couple of hundred quid saved on an annual household budget isn't really worth all this discussion IMO.

Not yet, but energy prices are expected to rise significantly as a percentage of disposable income over the next 10-15 years (because the UK has an energy-generation gap on the horizon); which was my point in an early post; fucking about with the retail end is missing the point.

 

[Fweddy]

Not yet, but energy prices are expected to rise significantly as a percentage of disposable income over the next 10-15 years (because the UK has an energy-generation gap on the horizon); which was my point in an early post; fucking about with the retail end is missing the point.

But what's the point in a long term solution? That's not going to get anyone elected!

 

[rynnor]

But what's the point in a long term solution? That's not going to get anyone elected!

Bit late now anyway - should have started a decade ago at least - a gap is now inevitable.

At least most of our manufacturing industry is dead - they were big customers once.