So you're trying to suggest Hammond was some sort of rogue agent who starved the NHS of funding against the wishes of all other Conservatives?

Nice try but nobody's going to fall for that one
If this becomes an election about the NHS rather than Brexit then the Conservative party will not get a majority.

rlLabour pledges free broadband for allrl

...by part-nationalising BT (despite saying BT weren't on their 'list' only a few months ago), creating a new company and taxing tech giants to run it. Do they actually listen to themselves?

We'll all be paying a 90% tax rate after a few years if this lot get into No.10.

Actually, quick, someone tell McDonnell about Steak & Blowjob Day...you never know, it could become law.

Indeed and both of the main parties are just pretending that they are going to spend.
Not until their manifestos are revealed, will either of the main parties be subject to any scrutiny.

For now, they are just chucking pebbles into a pond and watching how the ripples form.

As we know, manifestos are empty promises, regardless of which party we lean towards. It's a bit like a bus timetable, rough guesses, ideal timings, given fair weather etc.

What I am sure of, regardless of the GE outcome (which I expect a Conservative majority will return), is that taxes will increase, the public sector will be allowed to continue on its haphazard inefficient way, developers will still build on floodplains, and the increasing "it wasn't me, it was him" blame culture will continue.

I think both Labour and the conservatives are playing spending top trumps. Labour are winning by a country mile at the moment!

Corbyn has some hefty spending plans but, on a personal level, I would definitely trust him over Johnson.
I'm not sure if Johnson has managed anything truthful just yet, he is as close to a rogue leader as we have ever seen in this country.
The Tories onlt tactic seem to be to rubbish the opposition- Boris still remains the clown leader, just short of a red nose.

It’s all about personal views. Boris has his plan on Brexit not sure he has deviated from that during the campaign. Same goes for spending on schools and the NHS. Corbyn has done plenty of rubbishing the opposition - £500m a day on the NHS bill etc.

Corbyn knows it will never come to pass - the Tories 1.2trn of Labour spending will not be far off - broadband will be 150-200bn by the time it’s done - 20bn is laughable

As I said earlier, it seems that wild exaggeration is now perfectly acceptable.
Even before the election was announced, Boris was promising 20000 additional police officers - which we were then informed requires 500,000 applicants, therefore, it isn't happening anytime soon.
He then promised 20 new hospitals, almost instantly scaled back to just 6.

Labour have at least tried in the past to "cost" their spending plans, whereas the Tories have point blank refused (twice) and while they are happy to peddle the £1.2 trillion myth of Labour spending, they wont allow the same algorithm to be used to cost their own pledges, which is just hilarious and is an admission that they have wildly exaggerated the Labour figure.
Mind you, we know that Boris is happy to peddle lies on opposition spending. Nobody will forget the £350million a week that we were sending to the EU
Btw, do you think that he (Boris) knows how many children he has or did he just forget.

Nothing to worry about, its just "typical Boris", he's such a fool

Deary deary me.

So it seems Labour's little broadband plan would run contrary to EU State Aid Regulations - they are therefore promising something which can only take place if we LEAVE THE EU. Erm...anyone spot a loophole in their strategy?

Yes, that's right. They just pledged something that they can only deliver if they deliver Brexit. All you ardent Labourites think that through carefully for a moment.

Not to mention that BT themselves say it would cost £100 billion over the 8-10 year period (not the total £20bn cost Labour claim) - without even considering the cost of re-nationalising BT, then buying and compensating out the likes of TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Sky and the rest...which will run into feckin god knows how many billions...oh and also salaries and stuff.

Labour reckon running OpenReach costs £250m a year - the City put it at closer to £2 billion.

All of this paid for, of course, by taxing Amazon and Google - not something I disagree with, but ffs are we living on a Faraway Tree cloud with Moonface here?

Not to mention 5G and whatever might follow could feasibly render home broadband obsolete within a decade. 4G was only launched in the UK in October 2012, the next solution might not be far off.

Fortunately, as the only marginal BT share price decrease shows, no-one thinks Labour is going to get anywhere near No.10 while Abbott is doing the maths.

Someone please tell me you're definitely voting Labour so I can laugh at you.

Quote: Cronus "Deary deary me. So it seems Labour's little broadband plan would run contrary to EU State Aid Regulations - they are therefore promising something which can only take place if we LEAVE THE EU. Erm...anyone spot a loophole in their strategy? Well firstly Corbyn is hardly pro-European, which is part of his problem: his anti-EU bonafides are much more established and consistent than Johnson's. State aid rules are pretty flexible on broadband provision so don't get too excited by this reporting - and see https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-mar ... ent-models for suggested models which includes state-ownership of the infrastructure. But as a concept let's think about BT Openreach: a privately-owned defacto monopoly. This is the problem with the ideological privatisation of utilities: it's not a real free market therefore the structures around where the competition bit comes in is woolly. If one company owns the pipes or connections they have a monopoly and the competition comes in their being obliged through legislation to let other operators use their infrastructure to provide the service. There's no real reason why the same end-user free market can't exist with governmental ownership of the infrastructure - which would be arguably more in the national interest.

Quote: Cronus "Deary deary me. So it seems Labour's little broadband plan would run contrary to EU State Aid Regulations - they are therefore promising something which can only take place if we LEAVE THE EU. Erm...anyone spot a loophole in their strategy? Well firstly Corbyn is hardly pro-European, which is part of his problem: his anti-EU bonafides are much more established and consistent than Johnson's. State aid rules are pretty flexible on broadband provision so don't get too excited by this reporting - and see https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-mar ... ent-models for suggested models which includes state-ownership of the infrastructure. But as a concept let's think about BT Openreach: a privately-owned defacto monopoly. This is the problem with the ideological privatisation of utilities: it's not a real free market therefore the structures around where the competition bit comes in is woolly. If one company owns the pipes or connections they have a monopoly and the competition comes in their being obliged through legislation to let other operators use their infrastructure to provide the service. There's no real reason why the same end-user free market can't exist with governmental ownership of the infrastructure - which would be arguably more in the national interest.

So Labour are saying Broadband will be free for everyone including business. So businesses that currently pay millions will get it for free?

Do we really need faster broadband than we currently have - business yet but homeowners - do they really have big issues watching porn - really?

There is also the tricky issue of shareholder compensation - McDonald said they would get UK bonds that currently yield 2% to replace BT shares that currently yield 7%. 2% will be a distant memory if Corbyn takes charge. Everyone who has a pension which has any BT shares in it will take a hit - great idea Jeremy.

There is then the thorny issue of all the firms that currently operate in the sector - approx. 600 and all their employees?

Roads and pavements in this country are a disgrace thanks in some measure due to Broadband introduction. Extending it further in many cases where tenants have no interest, can only make things worse.