Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Ditto for the Lib Dems.

I do actually quite like David Davis, despite his support for the death penalty... and despite him being a Tory! My estimation of him shot right up due to his stand on civil liberties, e.g. opposition to ID cards, and especially due to his resignation & re-election a couple of years ago after the detention without charge vote. I've never voted Tory before, & don't plan on doing so in the future, but if I'd lived in his constituency in 2008 I would have voted for him.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

How rude of them to want to keep more of their money in their pockets.

I would be happy to suggest how it could be paid for.

Tax credits need tightening up so that people with well above average incomes aren't getting them.

Reform of the welfare state, get shot of Jobseeker's Allowance and replace with Employment Insurance based on contributions and previous income which after a set period wanes to zero. EI to be funded as a flat % of income in a similar manner to an insurance premium.

Cease funding of the NHS from general taxation and instead allocate a compulsory insurance contribution to be deducted directly from salary. Each home nation funds their own health expenditure in a similar manner to the provincial schemes in Canada. Should focus the regions when they are having to directly explain to their voters why they are paying what they are - there must be total transparency in terms of expenditure with each and every NHS trust having to report income and expenditure in a similar manner to a business. Minimum standards of care, based on pre-insurance levels of service, to be set to avoid management preserving themselves at the expense of front line services.

Devolution - each of the home nations to have their own budgets, legislature, etc, in a similar manner to the USA's states and Canada's provinces. They will pay taxes to their home nation and they will pay taxes to the UK as a whole in a similar manner to the USA and Canada's provincial / state and federal taxes.

Pay as you go - both health insurance and employment insurance are to be funded on a pay as you go basis and contributions ring fenced. If it's going to be spent it must be raised, some limited latitude for economic cycle at the beginning, removed once the funds go into surplus then pay as you go with outside assistance in exceptional circumstances and expressly authorised by UK Parliament only.

Minimum income guarantee, dependent upon circumstances such as dependants and cost of living. Some of this income where children are involved must be provided via an electronic card which can only be used to purchase food.

Housing benefit replaced with a scheme with a flat maximum payout - no-one living on welfare should be having the state pay a landlord thousands a month to live in a large Central London home, if they were there previously their Employment Insurance will cover up to 75% of their income and allow them to pay the rent / mortgage assuming their own insurance doesn't cover it.

The welfare state must never supply a better income than a person could previously reasonably expect given previous earning levels - if no earnings this would be minimum wage.

That should save a few quid straight off as well as divesting power closer to those who they are working for and encouraging individual responsibility. The fact is that smaller nations tend to be more efficient and have more wealth, the exception to this being the USA which is run in many ways like a series of smaller nations.

Of course this would be incredibly unpopular for many reasons. :)

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

You are wasting your time posting on here, maybe you should have a constituency, or have a go at running the country.

No I am not taking the P***

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

:tu:

If compulsory, good plan. If not, it will be unaffordable for people on low income, who have a higher risk of unemployment.

Is that the sound of marching boots I hear?

Yes, sounds good.

Interestingly, when I was last paying tax into a system as outlined above (Compulsory Health and Employment insurance) I was paying 50% tax (inc. health/employment insurance) on earnings over ~£20k (10 years ago with a strong pound). The top tax bracket was 60%, basic rate was ~35% IIRC*. I can see why this would be unpopular in the UK.

*I should add that interest on mortgages was tax-deductable, which is a major tax break for the wealthy.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Hey,

Just to address the above, the contributions would be absolutely compulsory, and part of the minimum income guarantee being in 'electronic food stamps' is, yes, somewhat authoritarian which I have a distaste for but ensures that people eat and will improve welfare in homes where the welfare state is misused. For cases where it would not be misused I would hope it would be viewed as a simple way to pay for groceries.

Potentially this method of payment would have a pitfall that would need addressing with software at the PoS - ensuring that it cannot be used to purchase age restricted goods would be necessary and would ensure that there's no use of it in supermarkets for tobacco or alcohol. Placing the claimants photograph on the card would ensure it is non-transferable. This card could replace the NI card though photograph, name and NI number would be the extent of the information contained on the card to avoid it becoming an 'ID card' of sorts with balance held online not on the card and transactions authorised via chip and pin, never to be handed to a cashier or leave card holder's sight.

The compulsory insurance schemes don't require high rates of taxation - Canadians and Americans pay less tax than we do and North America is where I plagiarised the ideas from - the popularity idea referred to the idea of having a time limit on employment insurance and paying a dedicated insurance premium for health card, with each home nation having to pay its' way. The other issue is that it would prevent the government from using healthcare or welfare as political footballs. If they both have to be paid for and are ring fenced the government can't hike spending up as a vote winner, as this would require them to increase premiums as well which would be up to the home nation, nor can they 'borrow' funds from any surplus - governments won't like it as it takes control away from them and requires them to be accountable directly to their electorates. 'We want to increase health spending by 20%, here's your insurance premium for next year.' has a rather sharper effect on the electorate than 'We have increased health spending by 20%, we'll sneak the paying for it into your income taxes some time in the next 10 years or so and in the interim we'll just borrow so we don't have to increase your taxes right now and lose votes and can blame the next government, have a nice day.'

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

That's fair enough and laudable, but I still don't like the authoritarian aspect of it .:)

Hang on. The USA (I don't know about Canada) has compulsory health and employment insurance? I don't think so. What was all the recent noise about universal US health care about then? IMO it was about the fact that providing these for low earners will cost the high earners disproportionately (which I think is fair). If you want to look at the cost of providing these things at decent levels (which I don't think the US provides), I think you're better off looking at Western European states like Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia etc.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

I don't like the authoritarian aspect either :(

Canada has compulsory health (here's one province) and employment insurance.

The USA does not as a whole have those but some states, such as Massachusetts, do have compulsory health care insurance.

I mentioned North America specifically due to the segmentation of health care plans. This is something that is I believe best devolved along with a number of other things. Allows both use of economies of scale through UK-wide purchasing power and efficiencies from smaller scale operational units.

Gemany's taxation is considerably higher than ours along with their having more reliance on private healthcare, Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia all have higher levels of personal taxation and considerably smaller populations. North America is a closer representation given personal taxation rates and populations.

---------- Post added at 00:21 ---------- Previous post was at 00:17 ----------

Haha, good God no. I'd be thrown out of Parliament for having some rather choice words for people in no time :D

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Cheers, I will (might) have a look if/when I have time. I very much doubt that any of those compulsary schemes in the US come even close to the schemes run in the countries I mentioned earlier in terms of % of last salary paid out, and length of payments.

And along with trains running on time, cities looking tidy, having great public services, and generally being very efficient and organised. That would never catch on here...

For taxation rates, maybe. For population, Germany, France, Italy and Spain seem more appropriate.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

funny how sith lord mandelscum spends sometime at david geffens villa and the comes up with this bill. how much of a back hander did mandelscum get.

he is a corrupt liar and a thief.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Well it's just unBritish isn't it? ;)


Listened to Cameron on the Today Program this morning, he seemed confident, didn't dodge questions like recent interviews I've heard with LibLab members (well ok, the newspaper question he admitted to having to dodge before saying the Star), admitted where he'd failed, even gave credit to some of Labours few good ideas, and expained why he couldn't give detailed answers on some of the questions.
He and his team have obviously got the message that peope are fed up with non-answers and "ya boo the others suck" responses from MPs.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Don't worry, I sure normal service will resume shortly. I doubt he can keep it up for the whole campaign. ;)

---------- Post added at 10:44 ---------- Previous post was at 10:41 ----------

I am sure one of his pals will find something to contradict him on, on The Daily Politics or on PM.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Both Cameron and Brown are avoiding Newsnight.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

I have to say, as with Ken Clarke, David Davies and Vince Cable, he does tend to come across as confident and sure of what he's talking about when interviewed.
Others such as Gordon Brown, most of his cabinet that I can think of, and even Nick Clegg (I think that's who he is) often sound as though they've been caught on the back foot.
Even Boris, bumbling as he can appear, doesn't come across like that.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

And as if she was actually reading this thread, Teresa May fulfills my predictions. Asked seven times if there will be any redundancies, she refuses to answer the question.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

How can she answer it at this point in opposition?
That's the point Cameron made this morning, they can't make decisions on redundancies without being in government.