Defending Labour & Jeremy Corbyn on the Doorstep - Economics

 Labour vs Tory economics and how we pay for them, in two easily shareable images!  Labour policies costed image and a great tweet below.  Sources and further information at the end.

Black and white printable version at the end.

 Labour Policies Costed - Eoin Clarke, LabourEoin on Twitter: click to see full size

History suggests Labour have always been more competent than the Conservatives  Economic Competence Revisited

The Conservatives have been the biggest borrowers over the last 70 years:

"First Labour invariably borrows less than the Conservatives. The data always shows that.

And second, Labour has always repaid debt more often than the Conservatives, and has always repaid more debt, on average.

Or, to put it another way, the Conservatives are the party of high UK borrowing and low debt repayment contrary to all popular belief, including that of most radio presenters. Which means that the next time I am presented with that nonsense I will be very firmly rebutting it."

Economists Back Corbyn


Austerity does not work:

Myth of Tory economic competence video by EL4C

References and further research for all the information in the above red background graphics:

John Mcdonnell's full speech.

Parliament Borrowing & debt

Tax Research - Conservatives party of high borrowing and low repayment

Professor of Economic Policy Simon Wren-Lewis Economic Competence Revisited

Another Angry Voice - How to answer the Corbyn's unellectable trope

Tories Hated Benefit Sanction Regime Costs £153 million per year more than is saved

TORY ECONOMICS Austerity after the Bank crash.  Poor to pay for the mistakes and greed of speculators. Welfare and protection given to Corporations and wealthiest in the form of tax cuts and bonuses. Sell off assets through privatisation.  Severely limit investment.  Creating short-term returns but limiting our earning potential long-term. Economic crisis prolonged.  Tories plan to continue on this destructive path despite expert evidence advising the opposite.  Contrary to what many believe the Conservatives borrow more and pay back less debt than Labour.  In fact, the Conservatives have created more new debt in the last 5 years than all Labour governments combined. Wages lower than before financial crisis 2008 Zero hour contracts – 1 million unable to plan for rent or bill payments, creating severe instability.  Bogus Self-employment forcing people to be available for work without pay. Welfare for Corporations allowed to exploit workers and pay less than the living wage.  Many on benefits are now in full –time work.  We subsidise Corporations with our taxes. TORY ECONOMICS PUBLIC SERVICES NHS Reduce funding to breaking point.  Increase privatisation.  This strategy will likely lead to us adopting a similar system to the USA with insurance payments, rather than free at the point of use services.  Low pay for Nurses with many needing to use food banks to survive after a long and difficult working week. EDUCATION University education costs up to £9,000 per year.  Our children have to take on an average £50,000 of crippling debt.  Only the wealthiest can comfortably develop their talents. WELFARE Cut Tax Credits for working families and Personal Independence Payments for the disabled.  Sanction welfare recipients who have no other means to survive. Implementing sanctions cost the tax payer £153 million more per year to implement than was saved.  Again private companies paid extortionate amounts, transferring the wealth from the most vulnerable to the wealthiest.  80 people per month are dying after declared fit for work.  Time for the myth of Tory economic competence to end.

LABOUR ECONOMICS Austerity is destructive for society.  The Tories went against majority academic opinion to impose austerity.  Losses outweigh savings made, the national debt has doubled, and recovery will be delayed as a consequence.   Investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, broadband, energy etc.  Invest in local businesses so they can grow and create more jobs.  Bring profitable services such as public transport back into government control. Pay off crippling private finance.   All so we start earning as a Country again. Labour will continue honouring their tradition of borrowing less and repaying more debt overall than the Conservatives.  Labour are listening to the advice of expert Economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz. Living Wage £10 Minimum End to Zero hour contracts. Return to safe and secure well paid jobs. Making Corporations pay a fair living wage, so we don’t have to subsidise them by topping up exploitative low wages with benefits. LABOUR ECONOMICS NHS Fund the NHS.  Provide Doctors and Nurses with what they need to treat us.  Paying Nurses properly so they do not have to rely on handouts to survive. EDUCATION Free Education to help people who need it into well paid jobs.  We lose so much talent.  Think of the brilliant would be doctors, nurses, teachers and scientists etc, who just can’t afford to train. What a waste. Taking care of the most vulnerable in our society. Providing free school meals for primary pupils so no child goes hungry.  Tackling the consequences of Tory austerity including: 19m on edge of poverty 4m children in poverty Homelessness crisis More than 1m food bank parcels given out yearly, many for working families. 86% of cuts falling on women

HOW DO WE PAY? A 500bn National Investment bank will enable investment in local projects and businesses, generating growth into every community.  Private banks have had unreasonable power over who receives investment for too long. Every successful business knows they have to invest to increase and maintain stable ongoing profits.  After initial investment this economic strategy will pay for itself as our Country starts earning again.  Meanwhile, more jobs will be created ensuring that more tax revenue is collected and the welfare bill is reduced. Labour have been and will continue to be a more economically competent government than the Conservatives. Large corporations will be picking up the majority of the bill for this economic change.  We will be benefitting from higher tax collection and lower in-work benefits and welfare payments. HOW WILL WE PAY? Labour will shift the tax burden from those who earn wages and salaries to those who hold wealth. Tax fairly and effectively: Reverse Tory multinational Corporation Tax cuts (28% to 11% by 2020).  Patriots pay their taxes.   Global average Corp tax rates are 27%.  Raises £64 billion. Tackle wealthy tax avoiders who underreport their income, and evaders who use currently legal means to reduce their tax burden.  The Panama papers alerted us to the massive scale of this, we must hold wealthy tax dodgers to account. End tax havens, so the taxes that are supposed to come into our economy do.  Collect fair taxes from large corporations, rather than giving them deals.  You can’t negotiate your tax bill with HMRC, why should they? VAT on Independent schools raises 1.1 bn. Together with fairer taxation for the wealthiest, Insisting businesses pay a fair living wage to employees will reduce in-work benefits.  Creating more jobs through investment will lower the welfare bill overall and increase tax revenue.  Saving £153 million annually paid to private companies who put vulnerable poor + disabled into severe financial distress.

 

Defending The Labour Party & Jeremy Corbyn on the Doorstep - With Evidence

This Blog post will be updated with new information on an ongoing basis, right up until the General Election, keep checking back for updates.  Feel free to take any of this data and share widely.  This has been rushed to publication due to the imminent Election, please let us know if there are any problems with links etc. 

ECONOMICS

The Tories are economically more competent myth:

"First Labour invariably borrows less than the Conservatives. The data always shows that.

And second, Labour has always repaid debt more often than the Conservatives, and has always repaid more debt, on average.

Or, to put it another way, the Conservatives are the party of high UK borrowing and low debt repayment contrary to all popular belief, including that of most radio presenters. Which means that the next time I am presented with that nonsense I will be very firmly rebutting it."

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

Myth of Tory economic competence video by EL4C https://youtu.be/lmgfRZJLTQk


History suggests Labour have always been more competant than Corbyn Economic Competence Revisited
 

Also the full Economic post on this blog Here

 

POLLS

There is no evidence for Corbyn being unellectable, he has never lost an election he personally stood in.  Polls generally used to demonstrate this diatribe are often heavily biased, for example:



The largest public sample we have so far in any poll 165.4k+ and still open at the time of writing shows Corbyn 68% May 19%.  This Poll is run by ITV.  Main stream media and open to all so less chance of bias.

http://www.itv.com/thismorning/hot-topics/poll-who-do-you-want-to-be-the-next-prime-minister

 Labour are ahead in polls with those aged 40 and under, click for article

Sometimes its better to just mention this:

MAINSTREAM MEDIA BIAS

Media coverage of Jeremy Corbyn has been characterised by a “marked and persistent imbalance” in favour of sources critical to him.  Includes BBC, ITV and online coverage.  BBC journalists used language deemed by the researchers to “emphasise hostility, intransigence and extreme positions:

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-party-media-reform-coalition-birkbeck-a7163706.html

75% of press coverage misrepresents Jeremy Corbyn, we can't ignore it anymore.  Media are acting as an attack dog against anybody who challenges the status quo:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-mainstream-press-lse-study-misrepresentation-we-cant-ignore-bias-a7144381.html 

Full report with excellent graphs including the one below https://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/pdf/JeremyCorbyn/Cobyn-Report-FINAL.pdf 

BBC journalist takes information our of context, manipulates an interview with Corbyn and presents a lie:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/18/bbc-trust-says-laura-kuenssberg-report-on-jeremy-corbyn-was-inaccurate-labour

How Online PR Shills & MSM have used Psychological techniques to distort your view on Corbyn. They try to steal your choice, don't let them steal your vote:

The Vile Maxim Blog - Psychological Techniques Used to Manipulate Your Vote

CORBYN IS A TERRORIST SYMPATHISER?

Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Ghandi International Peace award for 30 years of upholding Ghanaian values of social justice and non-violence.
https://gandhifoundation.org/2014/01/09/the-gandhi-foundation-international-peace-award-2013

Corbyn on the right side of history https://youtu.be/LORF9p4Owtg

Plenty of others held talks:



Excellent indepth article on Jeremy Corbyns work for peace Click here
Provides accurate informaation and answers questions on all accusations of racism and terrorism including IRA, Hamas, Iranian Media and Anti-semitism.

Excellent indepth articles & other resources at Collective Voice:

http://www.collectivevoice.uk/2017/03/19/corbyn-terrorism-by-emma-campbell/
http://www.collectivevoice.uk/2017/03/19/terroristmyth/
http://www.collectivevoice.uk/2017/03/14/economymyth/
http://www.collectivevoice.uk/2017/03/12/eu-myth/
http://www.collectivevoice.uk/2017/03/10/unelectable/

EL4C have some AMAZING Videos:

What does Corbyn stand for https://youtu.be/pP4O6rB6PR0
Copeland https://youtu.be/bgU4Limom8Y
Corbyn on the right side of history https://youtu.be/LORF9p4Owtg
Tory U-turns under Corbyn https://youtu.be/ZswWeHJuq8M
Surrey sweetheart deal https://youtu.be/f_SHMvAzO-E
Tory Budget https://youtu.be/cSt1E8o0us8
Myth of Tory economic competence https://youtu.be/lmgfRZJLTQk
Labour policies https://youtu.be/L3HrBm_nsUE
Save our NHS https://youtu.be/lNXhXbBqSwY

Media sites for further information:

The Skwawkbox
The Canary
The Word
Another Angry Voice
Evolve Politics
Nye Bevan News
The Pileus
The Daily Politik Youtube Channel 

Regular no holds barred video updates: https://www.youtube.com/user/chunkymark

Psychological Techniques Used to Manipulate Your Vote. Who’s Stealing Your Choice in the General Election 2017?

The Illusory Truth Effect

‘if a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the truth’ - Joseph Goebbels

Can the simple repetition of a statement really be powerful enough to cause us to believe it? Can we really be manipulated into believing a false or misleading statement so easily?  Psychological studies keep telling us yes.  The more a statement is repeated, the more likely it is to be believed to be true, and this regularly occurs even when people are told statements might be false and disturbingly even when they know the actual truth.  

Understanding and applying critical thinking skills will generally protect us, but if we challenged everything we heard in our daily lives we wouldn’t have time to do very much else. For efficiency we all use natural mental short-cuts to judge information.  One strategy is to rely on how many times we have heard something to judge how truthful it feels.  We might also believe information because we trust the person, people or organisation repeating it.  In fact, we are so used to forming our beliefs around information we are told by trusted sources, that when we come to believe something from repetition alone, we may come to believe falsely that we received the information from a reputable source.   

Identifying a trustworthy source is generally an effective shortcut, but only as long as the source remains unbiased and truthful.  When we have mainstream media such as the generally esteemed BBC that presents information in a biased way, manipulates the truth or blatantly lies, this reliance becomes problematic.  When we have a general mainstream media including multiple Television broadcasters and Newspapers that act with an agenda, providing a heavy bias towards only one side of a debate and behaving like an antagonistic Attack dog rather than a Watchdog over the information we are entitled to receive in a democratic society, we are at risk. 

Surely presenting the facts in the face of a baseless statement, opinion or belief would be enough to correct this error?  Unfortunately, we have another mental barrier to cross.  When we form beliefs around what we repeatedly hear rather than through critical scrutiny of information presented to us, those beliefs become increasingly difficult to alter.  This is because beliefs are subject to confirmation bias, where we have the tendency to embrace information that supports our beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.  In many cases even facts may not change minds.  

When Jane repeatedly hears an opinion repeated on the BBC news, ‘Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable, his ideas are loony or unrealistic or that he is unpatriotic’ from a newsreader or presenter she trusts, she presumes the opinion must be based on something, and so believes it without question or research.  When she talks to her friend Tom who also heard these ‘facts’ repeated in the ‘trustworthy’ newspaper he reads he agrees, solidifying her belief.  Despite the opinion being baseless at every stage, both may now develop strong feelings about the issue without any deep understanding.  When Jenny who has researched the issue in depth provides Jane and Tom with honest and factual information, they may reject her information, automatically focusing on the plentiful information that supports their manipulated and baseless belief.

 

HOW PR AND MARKETING FIRMS USE THESE TECHNIQUES ONLINE

PR and Marketing companies understand this illusory truth effect well and use it to their clients’ advantage in all sorts of ways.  During election campaigns we know that if we repeat false information about a candidate on TV it can cause the public to believe it, and the same will happen if we repeat unfounded claims about a product, subsequently boosting sales.  

The online environment presented these organisations with a different challenge and opportunity.  People with particular interests flock to groups and forums, interacting directly with likeminded others.  This provides a ripe environment where large and relevant audiences can be precisely targeted with any repeated message a client wants to impart, distort or disrupt.  The beauty of this method is you can have many people delivering a repeated message over and over again in multiple online areas.  In some cases companies have employed only a handful of people who have each opened multiple accounts, so it can look like tens or hundreds of people have a certain point of view and that many agree with them, when there are only a few people repeating those views and they are often paid handsomely to do so.  Known as paid shills, facebook or twitter squads, this method of message repetition is now common place.   An added bonus of course is the ability for those spreading propaganda to be able to deny it when challenged, and even play the victim by acting offended that you might suggest they were anything but a regular member of a group, and sometimes it really is difficult to tell (a future article will explore this).

 

HOW PERCEPTION OF JEREMY CORBYN HAS BEEN MANIPULATED

The message that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable has been repeated in a powerful way over both mainstream media, and in groups where we thought we were speaking to people who were online to have genuine debates rather than manipulate us to think a specific way.  It has happened in a blatant way where the cry has been ‘Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable’, and more subtly where questions or statements automatically presume, and so impart the message, that the former is true ‘When are you going to resign?”.  Repetitive and often obviously scripted statements online have followed similar themes with recent additions of posts beginning “I like Jeremy Corbyn but.....” and “When I go out canvassing the public say they will not vote Labour if Jeremy is the leader”.  Statements such as these fall flat of course when we contrast with the opposite message, ‘When I go out canvassing the public say they can’t wait to vote for a ‘real’ Labour leader’.  Opinions like this are baseless without independent studies that provide data, but they do create internal dialogue, ‘Jeremy is no good for the party / unelectable’ vs ‘Jeremy is great for the party / very electable’.  The message repeated most frequently is likely to become a truth to members of the public who use the natural short cut method of sorting information rather than having the time to critically challenge the facts.

SHAMING TECHNIQUE

To enhance the repetition rate of one message over another, a shame inducing technique can also be applied to those stating the opposite.  If people who support Jeremy Corbyn can be led to believe that their opinions are not only less valid, but also betray a lack of intelligence or rationality, they will voice their support less often because they will not want to be ridiculed.   We have seen this happen through character assassination and in statements that portray effective socialist policies that would be viewed as mainstream in many countries as “extreme left-wing”.  Consider also, what happened to Gary Lineker and Lilly Allen when they recently promoted compassionate views.   Those who ‘shame induce’ know that they need to shut down opposing and challenging views as quickly and forcefully as possible, precisely because they know others will agree, follow by example and challenge the status-quo, don’t let them win.

CONCLUSION

The only way to counter this is for us to realise what is happening, protect ourselves by applying critical thought to what we are told, and to freely express ourselves.  Respected figures in the public eye have a very important role to play, as they are often viewed as trusted sources.  Ken Loach for example, has not just challenged the false narrative on a factual basis, but he has also emboldened others to gain the confidence in speaking out.  Share your own opinion by all means but if you have the power to challenge the narrative on a wide scale, you need to be very sure you have critically challenged the information you have been fed by a biased media, or you do a disservice to us all.

Most importantly, make your own choice about voting, and ensure you make it based on information and policies that are in your own and your family’s best interests.  Do your own research and don’t allow opinion, including those expressed in this blog, to hamper your own critical scrutiny of what you being told.