https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50942825 that will be 10 years of Conservative realism ahead then. I am sure these idiot Lefties believe what they say, which is even more worrying.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50942825 that will be 10 years of Conservative realism ahead then. I am sure these idiot Lefties believe what they say, which is even more worrying.

Come on we are trying to have a serious discussion here - its not a school yard

At least we know not to believe what Johnson says, which unfortunately many will discover for themselves over the next five years.
Please tell us you didn’t actually believe the lies Johnson told during the campaign. The first to discover how low he went will be those businesses in Northern Ireland that we all know will face increase work to move their goods. This will be followed by the people using the M4 car park when the E.U. start imposing tariffs.
I look forward to you defending each lie as they unravel.

One thing is for sure he will do more in five years than Labour would have ever done - all Labour would have done is give back the power to the unions, increase CT and the tax the rich. Then they would have realised this doesn't bring in the revenue they had hoped and guess what escalation in borrowing and everybody's personal tax would be rising. Be very careful what you wish for - unlike you most could see straight through Labour's hollow promises.

100% accurate, but the lefties can't even admit defeat graciously.

If you are among the better off in the UK, you are probably right.
However, for those less well off and outside the M25, do you really believe that the Tories and in particular, Boris, actually give a damn.
Fundamentally, the Tories believe in having the smallest welfare state possible, which, again, is ok as long as you never end up near the bottom of the pile.
It's interesting that you mention borrowing, which, by the Tories own admission, is going to rise over the current Parliamentary term and despite "getting Brexit done", nobody knows what the fall out will be from our exit.
Let's hope that he enjoys his political honeymoon as it's likely to go the way of all of his previous relationships.

Btw, Christmas Dinner should have been interesting round at the Johnsons, I wonder if Jo had an invite

What would you view as being a [igracious[/i admission of defeat?

The candidate and party I voted for lost. I’m disappointed (without being remotely surprised), concerned and I hope the country, and indeed the world, takes a different path in the future.

That argument would have made more sense if we were in the 1980s comparing Thatcher's Conservatives with Foot/Kinnock's Labour. The current Conservative party isn't a party of small-state empowerment policies, it's become more one of embracing a kind of economic populism to direct state funding towards strategic interests for political purposes.

Hence all the talk about redirecting state spending towards projects in the north; northern universities are now going to receive more cash. The big push to be outside EU state aid rules so that they can use taxpayers' money to prop up ailing industries that struggle to adjust to costs of Brexit.

If Conservatives and the right wing media are honest, these are policies that they would have been heavily criticising if they were coming from a Labour government, just like they would if Labour were jacking up the minimum wage by 6.5%. They would be comparing that to the incomes policies of the 1970s. Remember it was also the Conservative government who introduced an energy price cap, which was an Ed Miliband idea and the Tories warned it would lead to investment flooding out of the sector.

There are a lot of spending pledges coming out of the Tories, and economic commitments (like the NMW rise) that are going to rely on some pretty strong economic growth and/or tax rises somewhere if we are going to avoid just letting borrowing rise. Remember also that during the Tory leadership contest Boris talked a lot about tax cuts which he seems to have gone quiet on, but maybe those were pledges just made to bring that particular demographic onside which he is less wedded to honouring now.

Maybe their plan will be just to increase borrowing, like Trump has done in the US, safe in the knowledge that the media won't talk about 'burdening future generations with debt' when they have a right wing government in charge so much, and the 'tea party' style activists also go strangely quiet.

But it will mean that a lot of Conservatives will have to swallow some strange compromises to their ideology in order to ride the Boris train. I suspect Conservatives are better at compromising ideology if it means accepting power than most Labour supporters are (which may be why the Conservatives have held power for much longer over the past century). When Blair was aping some Thatcher policies he took a lot of crap from Labour supporters.

You want Corbyn to ride into #10 on a Unicorn, rip the wealth from achievers to pay for the workshy, If you had your way we'd be back to the 70's, f'd, skint and a global embarassment.

If my ambition were global embarrassment, then Boris Johnson would very much have made me a winner. I know you disliked Corbyn, but try saying something positive about Johnson, as opposed to pointing out somebody else’s flaws... it’s got to be tough, no? If you had to pick one of the traditional seven virtues (Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility), which would it be? I know we’re talking about a Prime Minister not a potential saint, but (squinting a bit in some cases) i’d give Thatcher diligence, Major humility, Cameron temperance, and May patience. F’it, use an eighth of your own choosing, if you prefer.

I became increasingly ambivalent Corbyn, I admit, to the point where he only started to look good compared with a Conservative party that had defeated UKIP by becoming UKIP.

I think wealth is too concentrated to be healthy for our society, including for the very wealthy (golden cage etc.). A lot of wealth isn’t held by achievers, it is merely inherited. Rent-seeking economic activity and financial churn, come at the expense of innovation and optimal allocation of capital. Our version of capitalism has become distorted, and the need for reform is pretty widely accepted even by capitalists. I’d look at a limited shift from income taxes to wealth taxes - which is something they do in the US, so hardly puts me on the hard left.

Labour’s campaign did have the feel of trying to win over a demographic that no longer exists, based on a nostalgia for the circumstances that led to it’s birth. I might knock the Tories for stealing their rival’s clothes, but Farage-era UKIP attracted voters and they’ve been able to absorb that and ride it to an 80+ seat majority. The other parties have to change now to oust them - probably in some ways I won’t like.

Out of interest, how do you rate the prospect of this Conservative Government vs the most recent previous iterations? Cameron/Osborne and May/Hammond.

Happy New Year.

Call it jealousy or envy, you do not like success, deal with it.

Christ almighty.

Are you a real person or just one of those bots who repeats a pre-determined line when there's a trigger word in the previous post?

Tell us all about you, IR80. What successes have you achieved? How successful are you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What keeps you going when things are getting you down? We'd all love to know...

Are we talking about success purely in terms of wealth accumulation in this context?

The logistics of living with extreme wealth don’t appeal to be honest. Better than being destitute, of course. Once you have enough money, then life is more what you do and what you are than what you have, imo.

The UK’s richest man grew up in Hull. I did not know that. Brexit supporting, off to live in Monaco, Sir James Ratcliffe. Each to their own, but I just can’t imagine being that rich and still basing my life decisions on money. People have different priorities, but I don’t envy him his.