Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Thank you! :D

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I sense a few lost deposits in my constituency.

Scottish National Party
Labour
Tories
Lib Dems
Communist Party of Britain
Scottish Family Party
Green
Reform UK

That’s me switching to other from next week. :D

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

How long have you been around these parts? :erm:

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Good to see you back Mick . I see your name is nicely coloured red, it's this seasons colour ;)

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

For purely selfish reasons, the party that abolishes IR35 will secure my vote.

Unfortunately the main contract I have has been placed inside IR35, they used a blanket approach with all contractors and didn't account for the knock on effect of the increases in the daily rates. As a result they lost around half of their contractors. The customer still expected me to have the same overheads and use my workshop/lab facilities as when I was conducting work for them through my limited company. I told them I was off, so they had to give me a large increase in the daily rate, and they are now only getting consultancy for their money. They have had to place a second ad-hoc contract for engineering services with my company, the fear of HMRC coupled to the laziness of those who are supposed to be conducting individual assessments and not blanket ones has made it a joke.

I am increasing the work for other customers so I will be in a position to ditch the inside IR35 contract, which I know will leave them high and dry.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I will look at the candidates and with some exceptions (no extreme parties) vote for the person I think will best represent me. (I know stuck record). I refuse to vote tactically and I dislike those who just know how bad everyone else is but have nothing positive to offer themselves. We have two independents standing so I may have some choice.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

But the two independents will never represent you as an MP which is the point of voting in this election. What is worse, by voting for someone who could never be an MP, you might get the person you did not want as your MP.

If you want representation, our system requires you to vote for the person who is the closest fit to your own views *and* that has a realistic chance of election. Anything else is a protest vote and so wasted in terms of representation.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Yes, I've always voted tactically. You might as well not vote if your voting for candidates that have no chance of winning in the constituency. Doing so makes your vote worthless. You might even be helping the candidate you least want.

It's a crap system , we had the chance to change it in 2011, but chose not to. The main 2 parties and their media backers campaigned against it (surprise, surprise), so we did as we were told.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

If Farage wants to make an electoral success of Reform UK, he needs to collaborate with other smaller parties like the Greens and Lib Dems to advocate for a different electoral system.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Amazing to think that even Farage could be of some use, albeit to further his own goals.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Me as I stated I will Never vote Labour (I can't call them xxxxxx here)**, and the I was a life long Labour voter and my first vote was under Milk snatcher Thatcher.
** No you cant, and if you pull that trick again you'll be banned from this topic.

The reason was Brexit (YES I knew exactly why I voted leave, and would do again) I stated why at the time.

---------- Post added at 10:03 ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 ----------

When you look at the votes other than Conservative or Labour, they will put KS into No 10.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Sunak... "Sorry D-Day made me late" - "I didn't have a Sky Dish' - Now I'm really convinced he's trying to throw the election. :grind:

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

However, being honest, you wouldn’t would you? And if you wouldd then you’re going to levels of idiocy that I have no words to describe

One is a person convicted of an heinous sexual offences , the other is someone who hasn’t actually done anything wrong.

How about growing up ?

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I had a trouble getting my head around that comment too. Lost all credibility there.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Amazing the Conservatives are changing the tone of the election campaign because they are worried about a Labour super-majority.

With a 80 seat majority nearly five years ago and hence 5 years of catastrophic governance since many voters l suspect will close their ears to your plea.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Blair lied as did Johnson - and then some! He even got fired in a previous job for lying. No Party has a monopoly on lying.

Starmer's not going to lead us into the EU in the next Parliament. Or the one after that. But the Conservatives' policy is to save £12bn from the benefits bill by the end of the next Parliament. Is this not a concern to you as someone on benefits?

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I'm only on benefits which is a measly £564.46 a month & and I get nothing else, as I'm a full-time carer for my dad, as if he had paid carers they would cost him nearly £3,000 a month, then they take his home and I'd be homeless.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I'm very sorry for your situation and am not criticising you for all the great work you do for your dad. I don't think the Council would make you homeless but that's another debate!

Which Party do you think is most likely to be of benefit to you? A Party which has vowed to cut benefits and others that take a more sympathetic approach. I would have thought the LibDems would be your first choice given their commitment to raise carers' benefits which you have described as measly? A vote for them would send a message to the next PM that carers' roles are important. (And they won't take you back into the EU in the next Parliament either so Brexit can be taken out of the equation.)

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

It’s amazing isn’t it how the campaign has morphed into ‘well … will you give us just a few votes at least, just so we can keep our hand in? Pretty please, we’ll be good!’

Of course the term ‘supermajority’ has no constitutional meaning in our parliament and is pretty much irrelevant. Once a governing party has a comfortable working majority it is going to get its business through regardless of whether the margin is 80 seats or 200. In fact there’s some evidence that governing parties with very large majorities have more trouble keeping their back-benchers on message, because the back benchers realise there will never be enough government jobs to go round and there is therefore less incentive to toe the line and be a good little minion.

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 11:25 ----------

Plenty of rejoiner pundits and politicians have pointed out how little anyone in Tory, Labour or even Lib Dem circles wants to talk about Brexit this time around. I don’t understand why they’re so surprised - whatever the arguments on either side, it is a major constitutional change that has dominated almost 10 years of our political discourse. We simply have to leave it alone at some point and concentrate on working with what we have, not least because there is plenty else going on in national life that requires more immediate attention.

However, an intriguing thought occurs to me - more than one recent poll has suggested the Lib Dems might come out of this, by a whisker, as the second largest party. You would then have a Euro-federalist party as the official opposition, with all the opportunities for soapboxing that represents. You would have to wonder what that might do to the national discourse over the next 5 or 10 years.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Remind me who posted

I want to leave the EU so when we lock some ******* up for their whole life, it means they come out feet first in a box.

Not go to the ECHR, who tell us to release him.


and

want us to leave the EU, so we can get rid of undesirable without all this human rights BS. Then terrorist suspects can't use us as a safe haven. Also stop those how come here just to claim our benefits.

You didn't know what you were voting for then and you don't now


You are one of the people that would suffer most under a CONservative (see we can both play childish word games) junta but you do you David and don't come crying to us when they screw the backside out of you as you knew what you were voting for

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Interesting or not ! Wales complians about speed limit , rubbish NHS , bullying fire service, rotten schools, and locally parking costs. Seem to blame the tories for them all. Don't seem to grasp they are all down to labour

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Be fair on the chap most Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for. They do now and they've got it. They seem pissed off for some reason....

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

How much do you think you should get ?

Whilst that may be the cash amount you receive, are you paying rent ? Mortgage? Does your father receive a reduction in council tax ?

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Wales is not a sovereign nation so it can always say it doesn't get enough funding from central UK coffers which are under the Conservatives' purse strings. So poorer performing schools etc can be blamed on the Conservatives. Once a UK Labour government is in power, this argument becomes trickier to make if Wales is run by a Labour government too.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

A few posters on here remind me of a Harry Enfield sketch...
https://youtu.be/i4_WuFTX-5E?feature=shared

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

The house is my dads, as I said we get nothing, as he has to much savings, mainly because he got my mums money

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I've seen it before, but it still made me chuckle. And scratch myself! :D

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Apropos of nothing, whilst falling down an internet search rabbit-hole (initially started with Rishi’s having no Sky TV when he was a kid, as his example of "doing without"), I found out that since the end of WW2, there have only been 4 PMs who didn’t attend Oxford University - Winston Churchill (1951-55), James Callaghan (didn’t attend Uni), John Major (didn’t attend Uni), & Gordon Brown (Edinburgh University).

Out of 79 years of PMs since the war, nearly 80% have been Oxonian led…

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Council tax reduction isn’t means tested….

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

It's also odd there has not been one Cambridge PM since the war.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I certainly fear the Greens after seeing their plans for NI increases.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Only if you earn over £50k, it's an extra fiver a week. You'd survive somehow.
At least they are more honest than other parties about tax.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Andrea Jenkyns (Leeds South West & Morley Tory Candidate) is panicking - no mention of Conservatives on her Election leaflet, and it has a picture of her with Farage...

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...8&d=1718205694

Update - just seen the other side of the leaflet, where it mentions (once) "under our Conservative Government" - see if you can find it...

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...9&d=1718206129

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

It’s not as if UK Labour would be able to increase funding to Wales. Boris and co spaffed billions to his mates remember so it’s not as if there’ll be much left in the bank to give us.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

The UK's been in debt for a long time.

At the end of 2023/24 public sector net debt was £2,690 billion (i.e. £2.6 trillion), or 98% of GDP. This is equivalent to around £37,900 per person in the UK.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk...0in%20the%20UK.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Has there been a recent (in the past 5 years or so) increase in UK debt?

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Yes, fundamentally we're living beyond our means so year on year, expenditure is bigger than income. And we're spending more on debt repayments than on education.

There were big increases in debt after the GFC and Covid.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I would be interested to know how you arrived at the figure of a fiver without knowing peoples individual circumstances. I calculate that my Class 1 NI contributions would increase by £128 a week.

The extreme left wing parties hate any sign of success in a person.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

More bad news for Sunak. I'm sure the first and third sentences are related, but the FT can't be explicit.

https://www.ft.com/content/98d3cdf0-...e-1e2b5c75f38a

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Few will read it even if they’re sympathetic towards her. They will see her name, they will see Farage, they will see Reform UK light blue, they will see a Union Jack. If anyone was ever likely to vote for her, that’s enough. Shocking though that it has got that bad. Listening to them all doing the media rounds, she’s not the only one who understands this is now a damage limitation exercise for them.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

Well of course. That £32bn and the VIP lane giveaway had to be paid back somehow.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I assumed he meant they were so hard up they didn’t buy a company called “Sky TV”.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

There is only one 46 year old man listed as a previous director of PPE Medpro on Companies House…

---------- Post added at 21:27 ---------- Previous post was at 21:06 ----------

As my best friend who earns a high six-figure salary says (and he is not left-wing in any way, shape, or form), "I sometimes get annoyed when I look at the very large deduction details on my monthly earnings, then I look at the very large amount still remaining, and I stop being annoyed"…

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I was watching Starmer on that Sky News interview and I am torn between wondering if Labour will have a hard time of it when they get in and fall apart pretty quickly when the pressure is on them. Or if they've been so cautious in what they promised and things are so bad that mere competence for a few years will reflect well on them and get them re-elected on merit in 2029.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

He always seemed calm and admittedly a bit boring when in the Commons but in these debates I'm seeing worrying signs of panic. It's like the enormity of the situation is dawning on him and being so close to victory is starting to adversely affect his performance.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

There is a difference however between a "high six-figure salary" and 50K.

Implying (as they did) that someone earning 50K is super wealthy is just nonsense.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I was replying to Escapee’s comment Which deductions works out to earning around £150k per annum, so the reply was in regards to that figure…

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I know, that makes no difference to my point. ;)

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

I went with Liberal Democrat because they seem to have more of a toe hold in my town.It's been a solid Tory stronghold for all the time I've been voting here.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3
 

couple of ways of looking at that statement

From a purely fiscal statement it kinda makes sense even taking the personal tax allowance complete loss and also the compulsory self assessment into account

However, if you look at it from a value for money perspective it really doesn’t exorbitant amounts of tax being paid and it’s being spaffed about on for example initiatives that have failed or will fail

---------- Post added at 11:23 ---------- Previous post was at 11:23 ----------

Depends on their living costs surely ?

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 3