I think some people will be disappointed when they realise how centre-left the UK actually is.

Just what are Labour doing ?
An election is just around the corner and instead of having a simple clear message and unity in their party, they are making themselves look stupid and inept.
The Tories have been fighting themselves for the last 3 years and have sacrificed their Parliamentary majority and what are Labour doing ?

Exciting policies:

Menopause relief
Take ownership of any house empty for six months - like to see them take over a couple of royal palaces


Allow local councils and teachers self regulate
Ban all private schools - Diane Abbot at the forefront of yet more hypocritical policies

Happy days

this party really is bonkers

If it wasn't so funny it would be tragic.

I am sure Casper the (not so friendly) Ghost will be along...

They are actually going to appropriate all the buildings & assets of these public schools and re-distribute them - good luck with that.

Its a party that has completely lost the plot - what next campaigning to remain the EU and then trying to negotiate a with-drawl agreement with the very same body!!

Any party with any remote bit of credibility should be able to destroy the Conservatives at this moment in time, show up the grifters, charlatans & liars for what they really are, and condemn them to the dustbin of political history.

However, Labour and the Lib Dems have been subsumed into the bourgeois society of the 21st century, a society so apathetic it would rather fight a war amongst itself than rise to an actual challenge.

Then again, how do you fight the likes of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson? It seems the more he lies the more support he gets. I suppose that's the danger of having a media created entity in power. While ever the Sun, Daily Mail, Express and Torygraph keep cheerleading him, the readership will keep lapping it up, because they're too gullible, and too indebted to lose face.

I can't disagree. Although there's not much for me to argue with regarding policy, the way they are doing it is embarrassing.

You beat the Tories by having policies that have credibility, you have senior party leaders that also have credibility - Labour has neither of these. Add to that increasing influence of Momentum and the larger unions in driving the agenda and Labour will never provide a legitimate opposition

Removing private education - what do you think the parents that do without to educate their children are going to do? More importantly where will Labour's front bench educate their kids.
Menopause relief - really, does this include trans women or those who identify as women all those close to the likes of Owen Jones?
Brexit - Labour are a complete laughing stock on this - a leader who simply doesn't lead on the biggest issue of the moment - Boris maybe an idiot but he has at least got a direction of travel
Remove ofsted - why because the teaching unions don't like their members being brought to task as to why kids can attend full time education for years and still cannot read, write or add up.
Revoke Clause 4 and take everything into public ownership - really many voters remember what it was like when the government owned key industries.
Take ownership of private property empty for six months?
£6bn of health care for the elderly - how will that be funded - don't say taxing the rich and increased CT it will not happen.

These are policies of envy - simple as.

McDonald is on the TV this morning - let's put £250m into a private enterprise that is quite clearly beyond help, it will be liquidated it is in such a bad state. I didn't hear McDonald crying for Carillion to be saved - electioneering. I appreciate Labour want to own everything but this would be a very poor investment and would be the tip of the iceberg.

Labour are currently in Parliament blaming the government for the collapse of Thomas Cook. This does nothing to improve my trust in their accounting abilities. They're also trying to hint that ATOL protection & repatriation is a failure. It isn't by any stretch, although it's true some hoteliers have panicked and demanded money from guests.

In the 90s I worked for Airtours for several years both overseas and at HQ, leaving 2 years before they became MyTravel. The cracks at MyTravel were pretty wide by the mid-2000s and quite why TC decided to acquire them was a mystery when the best move would have been to let MyTravel die and snap up market share.

In my years in airline management I worked opposite and with TC in several commercial capacities, and watched as they bought up companies for inflated sums and then let them stagnate and wither. Co-op Travel Group, Gold Medal/Netflights (sold for a £40m loss), Elegant Resorts to name a few. TC buying your company generally signalled the beginning of the end, as well as misery and uncertainty for the staff.

The below is pinched from Frances Coppolla:


Throwing £200m at this mess was pointless. It's a sad state of affairs and I have friends who have lost their jobs, but no-one is to blame except around 15 years of terrible execs at TC, who deserve all the flak they get for taking millions in bonuses out of a dying company.

forgot to say...


Geoffrey Cox for PM

Not much to disagree with there. But why should the Government bale out 140,000 people who would rather spend their money abroad than in the UK, while contributing to the destruction of the planet?

They shouldn't, is the answer.

Because these people for the most part will be tax payers and as such are contributing to what should be a developed society where the state looks after its participants. This country spends billions defending oppressed citizens in other countries using the monies contributed by the very people you begrudge spending the money on.

ATOL are contributing c40% of the cost so the governments contribution is c£60m - you think they that is out of order?

I didn't say they shouldn't. I wondered what those who deride Government intervention, those opposed to proper funding of social services, would think about bailing out the better off. I am all in favour of the Government looking after its participants.

Because someone goes abroad on holiday they are better off? People go abroad for a variety of reasons one of which is cost i.e. its cheaper than staying in the UK.

There is a world of difference between flying relatively few people home in a time of crisis from taking a raft of commercial businesses into public ownership. Perhaps if we didn't spend so much money on foreign aid we would have more money to spend on social services - £60m is a drop in the ocean when you come to funding social services. Labour is talking about £6bn - the UK foreign aid budget is £12bn.

I know its xenophobic but I would rather spend our tax revenues on the people who actually contributed to raising those revenues

I am sure we could make a list of things we could save huge amounts of money on, but we'd be laid wide open to name calling by the left leaning members of the board.

No 10 line now confirmed: back Johnson or get death threats.

Should the government bale out other failing businesses where said business has taken deposits or payments from customers ?

In my view, no. Where would it stop?

Governments shouldn’t bale out private companies - this is not a bale out this is simply an act of common sense to help citizens in a crisis. A bit like using the emergency services when the flood defences give way.

Let’s be honest the tax revenues excluding VAT the government have received from Thomas Cook will be significantly higher than any cost it will incur in this operation.

Bloody hell, you sound like you may actually have some empathy for people in trouble



As for Thomas Cook having paid large amounts of tax to the government, historically yes but, this year, not much.

Guarantee they will have paid more in Employers NI than £60m which is simply a tax on employing people

Which will be used up (and then some) paying redundancy to its staff.

Like lots of other failing businesses, they have been taking money from its customers, "knowing" that they were in serious financial difficulty.
Many, if not most of their customers will be insured, either through holiday insurance or with indemnity guarantees on their credit cards etc

Does your good will stretch to anyone who has innocently bought a stolen vehicle or lost money on other types of purchase or is it just Thomas Cook customers who you think should be helped.

You weren't too sympathetic to anyone on suicide watch a few days ago and I would have holiday makers way, way, behind them in the queue for government cash.

Even trying to compare the two is crass.

Grow up - for a start what do struggling businesses do they have to keep believing to they very end so they keep trading until they are no longer able - it’s like cancer patients who take drugs they know will only give them six months - why because they hope a cure/ saviour will be found. It is obvious you work in the public sector and have never worked in a business with its back against the wall

On the other matter you failed to address the funding in the health service and it not being a bottomless pit. Very difficult choices have to be made - do you allocate the funds to gender reassignment, abortion or do you spend the money on mental health issues. The funds are finite so you tell me where you would spend it?