Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The Tories have Lynton Crosby running their campaign and he seems to have taken them into quite a negative direction. This presumably with the idea the people will look at Miliband and recoil as they enter the ballot box.

Some Tories are worried about the campaign thinking Cameron has not allowed to be more positive and has too much faith in Crosby's strategy. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10094564.html

The Conservatives went into the election with a recovering economy, a leader who was rating much better than Miliband, and a party with no clear message who stand to lose a massive bedrock of support in Scotland. Yet they are falling behind in the polls. If they've made it all about Miliband being an idiot and voters decide he isn't then they're in serious trouble.

If they lose this election it will have to be one of the most spectacular failures of electoral strategy we've seen. I read the other day that no party has ever failed to win a majority where they've been rated higher on the economy and leadership.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

This is, however, a party that failed to win a majority in 2010 which was a pretty spectacular failure in its own right.

Evidently they haven't learned much.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I think UKIP will do much better, then what people think. Already they are shown as the THIRD party. And that Clegg, will lose his seat.

Don't be too surprised that on the day, there will be more seats for Farage. If l was a betting man - I would money on Farage hitting some Tory seats and coming out on top

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Coming out top of what? They won't win the election.

UKIP will see their vote being squeezed out by the Tories. Especially when they see that Labour would well win the election or at least be a minority Government via the SNP. That will send more voters to the Tory camp. It's already been happening to an extent, UKIP have been declining in the polls since the new year.

---------- Post added at 21:12 ---------- Previous post was at 21:10 ----------

Do you think they have a fundamental problem or just suck at politics?

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I can see this happening. And yes l am serious.

Labour
UKIP
Conservative
Lib Dems with Clegg forced to resign

At the moment polls are showing a 3/4 point difference between Labour /Tory with UKIP at 18% and Libs a dim 8%

Who would have thought that

And l feel that, there will be a fight between SNP (Labour will lose most seats in Scotland, that has seen Labour Voters) of Cameron / Miliband talking with that sexy SNP Sturgeon for the best deal to gain power

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

UKIP will not win anywhere near enough seats to become the opposition. I am not every sure they're contesting enough seats to make that possible. If UKIP get 5 seats they'll have done well. How do you translate 18% of the vote to that share?

Anyway.

YouGov/Sun poll has a slight improvement for the Tories:

But this should worry everyone:

The Times/YouGov Scotland poll:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The two most overused words in the electioneering so far must be promise and guaranteed..and the least believable. :rolleyes:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

and two words that never get used YES/NO

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Lies Lies and more Lies they will never change

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

http://news.sky.com/story/1463076/ma...-will-axe-fall

IF, the Tories get in again, they claim they will spend millions on the NHS, BUT they wont say where this will come from - Like Labour has said where they will get it from.

My assumption will be that Osborne will hit the Welfare budget again, and make several benefits harder to get.

Disability, Job seekers, and benefit that will FORCE people back into low paid jobs.

They wont increase Tax for the wealthy, as this will hit the donations that come from the rich.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/05/36.jpg

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co...bt-monger.html

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Yeah but that's labours fault apparently :rolleyes:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

To be fair the natural consequence of inheriting a large deficit in a struggling economy is that the debt will increase. I am not sure how the Tories could have stopped that when they come into office.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

if Labour had doubled debt in 5 years you would not hear last of it

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

No but it wouldn't make it right in that case either.

The deficit adds the debt. A large deficit will mean you need to borrow more which will increase the debt. They inherited a pretty big deficit. That said they didn't cut it anywhere near as much as they said they would.The Conservatives seem to actually have reverted to what Labour's plans where had they won the election.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

and who Coursed the debt the bankers and who never got punished the bankers and who did get punished the poorest

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Er ... Yes, actually, if you inherit a budget that has a large structural deficit, then you will inevitably rack up large debts while you try to re-balance it.

But hey, someone posted a trite one-liner on the Internet, so it must be true.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:confused: If that is the case, why did debt start rising in 2001/02? Did the banking crisis start back then?
Labour increased the debt from £316bn in 2000/01 to £1,101bn in 2010/11. That's a trebling of debt.
Public sector borrowing was slightly less in 2013/14(98.5bn) than in 2008/09(100.8bn).
As the table I found says:-

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

and the tories DOUBLED the debt in 5 years despite all the cuts and the banking crisis made the debt much worse in 2007/08 that bankers fault no one elses so no labour didn't treble debt as banking crisis done most of it

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Labour seemed to have DOUBLED the debt BEFORE any banking crisis. £316.4bn in 2000/01 to £724.4bn in 2008/09. Labour borrowed £153.5bn in 2009/10. You can't cut that amount of borrowing "overnight".

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

you do know we borrowing more now right

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:confused: How is £98bn less than the £153bn in 2009/10? Have you been taking maths lessons from Ed Balls?:D

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Rack up large debts whilst cutting everything to the bone that's a neat trick and it's more than just a large debt, they've doubled it, after austerity to but hey you wanna think Gideon is any more competent than the last lot then that's your lookout he's not worthy of your faith.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I find it hard to take seriously any party that says we're in deep trouble and must cut everything to the bone to recover, whilst simultaneously giving away 12 BILLION/Yr in Foreign Aid (and making it law to give away 0.7 GDP/Yr too)

That's 1.5x NHS btw.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Apart from UKIP that's what all the major parties seemed to have signed up too.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The NHS budget for England is £113 billion in 2014.

http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/k...ics-on-the-nhs

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

No it isn't. NHS spending is £140 billion.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Paywall linky

So Labour are going to soak the usual milchcows.:rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 10:08 ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 ----------

Here's an amusing snippet, seems somebody thinks Scotland has it's own pound:

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]:D

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

You forgot to remind this guy who knighted Sir Fred Goodwin so I'll do it for you. It was Gordon Brown and Labour who feted and rewarded the bankers during the time all this was going on. He was so busy spending all the tax revenues they were generating that he didn't want to know what was underpinning it all. If anyone's to blame for their excesses and lack of accountability it's them, not those who've had to pick up the pieces.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:confused::confused::confused:
Doesn't answer my question as to, if borrowing rose because of the banking crisis in 2008, why did the public debt start rising 8 YEARS BEFORE that? Your reasoning that Gordon Brown was "busy spending all the tax revenues they were generating" doesn't explain increases in borrowing. If there were increased tax revenues then no need for increases in borrowing.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

It is a disgrace to send money to India and they can afford to send rockets to the moon, ;)

---------- Post added at 11:50 ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 ----------

We were in Bulgaria one year and the Scottish pound was far less than the English pound, Why this is God knows

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I'm not questioning what you wrote which I agree with. The City was helping to prop up Brown's spending and he was far too busy doing all of that to want to listen to the warnings being given by insiders as to what was going on inside the likes of Northern Crock, B&B, HBOS etc.

Borrowing clearly didn't rise simply because of the banking crisis, before any of that came to a head it rose because Labour have always had a tendency to spend money they don't have. The whole PFI thing was a device by which to hide massive additional borrowing. They were desperate to cling onto power and the last thing they wanted to do was to have to cut spending, welfare etc. just before an election and that's why Brown didn't want to intervene in the brewing banking crisis earlier than he was eventually forced to.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Labour have released their manfesto:

http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/entry/...manifesto-2015

Most interesting part is that they want to replace the House of Lords with an Elected Senate of the Nations and Regions.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

About time I say.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Labour will abolish the bedroom tax.

they're on to a sure winner with that one already.

Cut tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year.

a sure winner on that one too.

They will ban zero hour contracts.


Remember. it's a vote to Win.
vote Labour!
make the sun shine on Britain again!

Dave made it dull and gloomy.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

CityAM

Guardian Don't count your chickens yet, Gary......;)

btw, Labour will not ban zero-hour contracts - they have said they will ban "exploitative" zero-hours contracts.

Labour Party

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The polls are all over the place!

---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 15:03 ----------

Btw look at the ukip numbers. Looking like they're swinging back to the Tories.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Yes that's my thoughts as well Damien on both counts.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I'm not a Labourite but.. I don't actually see anything wrong with that.

Is there a Conservative Party manifesto up yet?

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Tomorrow

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I agree with you - I was just pointing out to Gary that Labour are not abolishing zero-hour contracts, as he stated....

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

And neither did they do anything meaningful to control all those evil ZH contracts during their 13 years in power. Odd that eh?... :rolleyes:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

But Labour employ staff on zero hour contracts, so scrapping them means they will have to give those staff proper contracts. If they hate the zero hour contract, why use it themselves?

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I don't have any chickens :)

That's what I said.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

no ,this is what you said ,any government 'banning' zero hour contracts would be out of order because many people's lifestyle is more suited to zero hour contracts as mine is .

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:tu:

Labour won't ban them now any more than they banned them last time around. They spout guff like this because they know it resonates with people like him...

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Cheer Osem up. Vote Labour!

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Problem for Labour. They've just admitted (on the radio) they can't match the Tories £8bn increase in spending in the NHS. Only £2.5 billion increase.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

thats not such a bad thing it just means they wont be able to employ so many none English speaking staff this time :dozey:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

To explain that you have to look at the how the tax revenues were used ,one example I am personally familiar with was the Decent Homes Scheme ,a scheme where the Labour government of 2000 gave away billions to LA's to upgrade council houses ,a worthwhile and much needed scheme that was extremely badly managed and wasted a lot of the funds. It was due for completion in 2010 but a report in 2010 estimated completion in 2018 costing billions more .
I am sure there are other failures from both labour and conservative but this was a main policy for Labour and much lauded by Blair and Brown and accounts for a lot of waste in the public purse


http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2...l-Audit-Office


It's worth mentioning also that the current government is still borrowing money to pay for this scheme because they have an obligation to continue the scheme until completion which also accounts for a lot the extra borrowing in the current government

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

there is no way tories will spend £8bn increase on NHS which is in a big mess since last election Osborne refused to answer where money coming from 4 times Andrew Marr asked him

not sure Labours mansion tax will raise the £2.5bn either for the NHS

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I'm glad that R4's PM program bring in the analysts from More or Less to go over the figures and debunk some of the promises.

Take everything with a very large pinch of salt.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

A reason NOT to vote tory, how many businesses have the tories sold off?

British Rail
British Gas
British Steel
Coal
Royal Mail
Electricity
Plus many more.

A few had tories which made money out of it.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Selling those businesses saved most of them from bankruptcy ,governments are not put in place to run companies in my opinion.

---------- Post added at 18:39 ---------- Previous post was at 18:37 ----------

Conveniently forgetting about all the Labour supporters and funders making millions out of PFI :rolleyes:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:tu:

Just look at those money pits of the seventies. The state was well rid of them. I cannot seriously believe that people think that nationalised industries were better.:rolleyes: Unless of course they never experienced them.

I lived through the seventies couldn't care less attitudes, months to get a phone line installed and then only with their crappy equipment. British Leyland on constant strike. British Steel costing £3million a day of your money.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

:tu:

Some people really do see through rose tinted specs

Yeah things were sooooooo much better then.... :rofl: If more of those lefty loonies who bang on about BL cars actually put their money where their mouths were at the time maybe they'd have survived a bit longer.

As for British Rail - I remember countless cancellations, disgusting trains/stations, numerous strikes, etc. etc. Yes they were indeed the glory days of train travel in the UK. :rofl:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Even Blair and Brown realised that Nationalisation was wrong

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Some industries are much better privatised. Especially telecoms. That said I don't think all of them are and it's become something of pushing the ideology at all costs no matter what. You need to take it as a case-by-case issue rather than privatisation = good, nationalisation = bad.

Rail I don't think it makes sense to privatise as there is only one track and thus competition is meaningless. Once they have the franchise then they don't have long to turn a profit. This is why state investment has only increased since it was 'privatised' as there is no incentive for the private companies to invest. Remember that awful tender that FirstGroup put up where they claimed they would pay more and have cheaper tickets? Never made any sense and thankfully Virgin took it to court at which point the Government 'saw some mistakes' and pulled the tender.

Britain is rare in having a privatised runway. France and Germany do not. Even America, home of capitalism and competition, don't have it.

Royal Mail I am not sure of either but we'll wait and see how that turns out. I worry about the uneconomical deliveries. How long before villages get a few deliveries a week?

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

£40bn of borrowing a year? Add a £17bn a year surplus and that is the sort of figure of excessive spending we're talking about. That was still all pre-banking crisis.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

State investment has increased since privatisation because prior to that, there had been 50-odd years of chronic underinvestment and certain parts of the network were becoming dangerous. Signing contracts with 3rd parties to run services creates obligations around the quality of the infrastructure. Companies like Virgin and First don't appreciate the reputational damage caused by faulty tracks and signals killing their customers.

Once upon a time, Britain was rare in having a railway at all. Being prepared to do things differently to our competitors used to be considered one of our great strengths.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Then nationalise with further investment. All real investment has to be done by the Government anyway so why create a system where companies need to skim a profit as well?

The fact that the Government underfunded it for decades and then used that as evidence it doesn't work is perverse. If the only real value in having the third parties involved is because they'll complain about track quality then that isn't the greatest argument besides the track isn't privatised as well is because we had to reclaim it when Railtrack went down the pan.

When he had to reclaim the East Coast Main Line it turned out to run better than it had before and even return a profit.

Things are only worth doing differently if there is a logical purpose for it. The logic behind the privatisation of the rail network seems to be that privatisation is good.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Because the profit incentive produces innovation and efficiency. Come on ... This was one of the key ideological arguments of the 20th century. News flash: Statism lost.

It's not an issue of "track quality" - incidents at Ladbroke Grove, Potters Bar and Greyrigg demonstrated chronic safety issues, both in terms of the physical state of the track and the safety culture - or lack thereof - of those who were supposed to be responsible for its maintenance. These issues stretched back well before privatisation (see: Clapham Junction) but if the involvement of private companies is what it took to force the issue up the agenda, then that's all to the good.

A state owned and operated railway will always have to fight for an allocation of cash in the government's annual planned expenditure, and is as vulnerable as anything else that relies on same, namely everything else overseen by the DoT, the home office, foreign office, DfE ... You name it. Contractual obligations to third parties is what has allowed our railway network to first of all overcome its chronic safety issues, and now, to begin to address chronic capacity issues.

This is nonsense. The Great Western and West Coast franchises outperformed East Coast in terms of passenger satisfaction and other key measures throughout its stint under DOR control. In any case, the best comparison will be between DOR and the next five years performance under Virgin, as there was not another operator running like for like services on the same track at the same time. Comparing DOR with a prior franchise whose operator conceded had failed is somewhat pointless. The fact is, national rail franchises do not routinely fail. This was exceptional, and comparing an exceptional and rare private failure with a brief period of state control in which nothing went wrong, but in which nothing was spectacular either, tells us nothing useful.

See above. Give people a profit incentive and they operate more efficiently and innovatively. The market, regulated where necessary, works. Simple as.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I am talking about the specific application of the principle on the rail network. You can't just declare Statism lost and the argument as been won. France, Germany and even America have state run railways. We still have many services run by the state. It's not a question of if the state should run everything or nothing but the degree to which the state is involved. Pretty much every nation has varying degrees of it.

I would say the incidents themselves contributed to the awareness of the dire state of the infrastructure before rail companies complained. That and the increased amount of passengers on the rail networks as the country becomes increasingly centralised in urban areas.

I don't think we need to involve companies so we can have a contractual way of holding the Government to account for the state of the rail network. This wasn't even the intention of privatisation as the rail network was privatised and failed so now we do it. We're stuck with a situation that even those behind the scheme didn't want. A hybrid system where the major investment comes from the State and the companies run the service and the rolling stock - badly.

This is already the case now. HS2 is being funded by the state. Voters can decide where it should be priortised, not third parties.

OK I will concede East Coast may not the best example.

Still. It takes a lot of fail. You need to be really bad to have the franchise taken away from you. One I used was routinely late, 4 carriages instead of 8 at rush hour had the time, broken down train after broken down train, trains cancelled and refunds not materialising. It took years before they lost the franchise. The new one is better but still undependable and the cost insane.

Why? It's not as if they'll be kicked out of business by more efficient companies. They have a monopoly on the line as long as they meet the targets. Other than that they'll be encouraged to keep as much money as they can in profit before the tender is up for renewal. They will have to be doing some impressive job to do well enough to make a profit and still be cheaper than the state. I think that one of the central reasons privatisation works is competition which doesn't exist on the railways.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

As opposed to now where it's cheaper to fly than get the train in many cases

---------- Post added at 01:55 ---------- Previous post was at 01:53 ----------

Or profit incentive could lead to job cuts, gross underinvestment in infrastructure, larger bills and debt leveraged against companies as with the water companies.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Both of the major parties appear to, at the last minute, have decided to desperately try and cover up their perceived deficiencies.

The Conservatives suddenly magic £8 billion out of the air for the NHS, having spent however many years telling us how vital it is to show fiscal responsibility. George Osborne also told a blatant lie when he said that the worst of the austerity has already been done, it hasn't, but that's another story. He looked a tool when he couldn't explain where the cash was going to come from, about the only place that comes to mind is that he's hoping for growth in tax receipts to cover it. Hmm that sounds a familiar story. One I'm pretty sure he, in between promising to match and exceed Labour's spending, lambasted.

The economic illiteracy of the British people is being ruthlessly exploited. People are told that it's vital the country begins to pay down the debt. It's not - it's vital that we reduce our debt to GDP ratio which certainly isn't the same thing. Astonishing level of duplicity from the coalition in conveniently changing how they've been rating the deficit from absolute terms to the debt to GDP ratio as it scores a better number on the soundbites, especially duplicious as it they only began doing it recently.

Conservatives try to paint it as a bad thing that Labour are willing to borrow for capital investment. This isn't a bad thing - borrowing for productive investment is done all the time. Borrowing Osborne and company's ridiculous model of treating state finances like household ones borrowing in order to make a productive, and profitable investment is exactly the right reason for a household to borrow.

Indeed we have a big investment gap to fill as big businesses seem to be more interested in borrowing to buy back their own stock and hence boost their earnings per share and in turn bonuses for senior staff than they do investing in productive activities. 97% of money is created by private banks, only 3% of free floating funds by the BoE, and of that 97% only about 10% ends up going to business and as mentioned a lot of them are buying their own shares with it. The rest is used to speculate on the financial markets and buy property.

Assuming Labour stick to it, and there's no way they can under their current plans as there's a big black hole there, balancing current spending, running a surplus as much as possible, and borrowing for capital is spot on. As a concept that's a decent way to run an economy, especially one as starved of investment as ours.

That's the main rub with Labour though, a manifesto light on details with a whole bunch of things missing. The numbers simply don't add up.

On a subject close to my heart - housing. The Tories continue spending taxpayers' money to keep house prices high. The most recent scam being extending Right to Buy to housing association tenants universally and increasing the discount for those who already had the right. So if you're young this doesn't help you in any way, you've just seen the social housing stock drop. If you can't afford it you've just seen the social housing stock drop as it'll be funded by forcing local authorities to sell larger properties as they become available - don't grow your family. If you can afford it then congratulations, an estimated 100-200,000 households will be purchasing properties at a taxpayer subsidised discount, given the locations of these an early estimate reckons at least 1/3rd of which will end up in private landlord hands in the not too distant future.

Naturally the Conservatives are going to carry on protecting the greenbelt. Yes, yes, it was fine for it to be less than half the size it is now 20-30 years ago but we just can't afford to lose a single hectare of it now. Never mind that urban greenery has far more value both in terms of quality of life and utility.

Labour's promises on housing are nebulous, lacking in detail, and nowhere near ambitious enough.

What I've heard from the Tories so far is a whole bunch of bribes to their core vote alongside the occasional swipe at a smaller subset of the wealthiest.

What I've heard from Labour is confusing, nebulous, contradictory.

I would say that both completely abandoned any hope of getting a majority, both have been appealing to their core voters, however as a desperate and belated rear guard action both have tried to paper cracks and win some of those in the middle by impersonating the other.

These parties are both unbelievably dire.

Watching the current machinations I suspect Labour will end up in a coalition with the Lib Dems. Whether this gives them enough to form a majority or not I doubt, and they may up in a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP.

Given how unbelievably crap both Conservatives and Labour are the days of majority politics seem to be over for the foreseeable.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Now with have the Tory's Right to Buy back again! Good in principle but are the majority of housing stock now run by Housing Associations. Questions to ask: who is going to make them sell their housing stock at a knock down price, who qualifies.

Would you buy yours if you live on a crap estate etc.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

If enough people buy up then sink estates tend to get transformed into desirable places to live.;)

I'm glad to see that they have pledged that the money raised would go into building more affordable housing. It could become a virtuous circle if correctly managed as well as requiring less input from the taxpayer.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I'd like to make manifestos's contractually binding. They can put whatever they want in it, and not deliver any of it if elected. The Tories have no intention of delivering any of these unfunded giveaways. I suspect they know there's no way they can get a majority, so on the off chance they are part a a coalition, they can say the other party won't let them deliver the manifesto goodies. That's what they did with their inheritance tax pledge last time. The promises/lies are getting increasingly desperate.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

You can't make them legally binding because events can undermine the best of intentions.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Yeah like Grant Shapps promised 1:1 replacement when they increased the discounts on RTB.

That went well - the replacement ratio dropped from 18:100 to 14:100.

It won't require less input from the taxpayer. As of 2 years ago in Wandsworth over 1/3rd of all properties sold under right to buy were being privately let. You end up with people buying up then 1/3rd being lived in by tenants who come and go, turning places with stable populations who may care about their properties into ones with transitive populations. For the sink estates it might improve it'll mess up other developments.

It will however do a great job of bribing a few and will get some social cleansing going. Forcing LAs to sell off properties in more expensive areas to fund this will do a great job of that.

Incidentally if you're a 'small c' conservative this is hideous as it's the government confiscating something they don't own - housing associations are charities - and forcing its privatisation.

If you're a large 'C' conservative it's short term idiocy as it will reduce the level of home ownership over the longer term, just as HTB has. Some people used to use social housing to save up for home ownership, now they have to have an amazing job, mortgage themselves to the hilt, rely on the bank/hotel of mum and dad, or use the taxpayer to guarantee them.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Labour-SNP heading for majority in poll projection.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...ted-to-hit-326

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Wiki

1992. ;)

Whether that change of methodolgy makes the polls any more reliable remains to be seen.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Yes the polls are very hard to predict as voters are much more volatile then they used to be but one cannot be surprised at that given the political rabble we have at our disposal nowadays.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The possible result is probably, in order of likelihood:

• Labour minority government (supply and confidence via SNP)
• Labour-Lib coalition
• Tory-Lib coalition

UKIP, Greens and the N.Ireland parties will probably not get enough to be a factor in any talks although it's possible the Tories might try to sustain a minority government via that route.

The SNP/Labour block will probably be enough to make a Tory minority government unworkable less they can command a narrow majority with the backing of the Liberal Democrats. A lot depends on the scale of UKIP voters moving back. I think the UKIP vote will collapse in favour of the Tories as people see how close the result will be.

My hope is that either that the Liberal Democrats win enough seats so that either Labour or the Conservatives can form a majority government. The worst outcome is a supply and confidence deal with the SNP who'll spend the next 5 years trying to undermine the commons for populist appeal up north.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I am just totally dumbfounded by the sudden large sums of money being found for all these promises and still 12 billion coming from welfare you can't have it both ways in that there is plentry of money for this but we're so skint massive amounts have to be cut here and from 2018 tax cuts for all. This election is blowing the brown stuff detector off the scale as it clearly has more to do with ideology then political or economic needs you can almost hear the hatred in Cameron's voice whenever he talks about welfare. If labour had a better leader I think they would walk this election to be honest as I don't believe most of the public really do want the conservatives.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

It's the same at every election - most of the promises fail to materialise fully, if at all.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

A narrow Tory majority, because I believe the the population of the country not to be complete knobs.

I could be wrong.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

if nasty party win proves lots of country complete knobs and god help us

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

And if the ******* party win, we will go further down the toilet...

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

only if nasty party win

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Ding Ding end of round one.:D

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

looks like the bum twitching has moved up a notch .

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I think one sure way that Dave and his nasty party could win this election is if he were to grow a little square moustache. and have all his nasty men wear long black leather coats.

he'd probably even find many people salute him everywhere he goes too.

He alienates the non "Hard Working People" too much. he comes across that he don't like that section of society.

so that will lose him their support I reckon.

I'm not a religious man.
but even I'm starting to believe there's some truth in that God has sent us the sun to celebrate a new happy and thriving Britain coming up.

you can tell he's looking forward to the end of Dave's reign too.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

You really need to cut down on the 'medicinal' herb......;)

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

The Tory Manifesto for the Hard Working People - No Way Tory Boys - I am a Hard Working Man - It does F all for me.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Raising tax threshold does nothing for you? :confused:

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Course it doesn't help poorer, working people mate. :rofl:

Some folks would clearly rather the economy slide into the abyss at the hands of the party who took us to the brink last time. One of two things will happen - either Labour will not honour many of their promises (just like they did 1997-2010) and destroy the recovery or they'll have to make cuts and will wind up hurting the people/services they claim they exist to help.

It makes me laugh that the party which claims to be so against privatisation within the NHS introduced so much of it via PFI etc. That fact that some people still fail to see that fact says as much about their grasp of reality as it does Labour's integrity.

They bang on about the top rate of tax being too low yet, IIRC, it's higher now than virtually the entire period they were in office, being changed only just before the last election. How's that for Labour duplicity? They raise pathetic stuff like this at election time because they know the usual suspects will fall for it.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

To be fair the Tories seem to be committing more money than Labour.

The Tories will cut tax for lower and middling earners (personal allowance and 40% tax band wil be raised), cutting inheritance tax and then spending £8 billion more on the NHS and doubling free child care. Apart from the tax cuts a lot of it could be in a Labour manifesto.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

SO LABOUR CREATED THE WORLD RECESSION!

Raising the Tax Threshold - we will being paying it back to the energy companies when they raise their prices again, along with the bus, train, VAT and other Stealth Tax's.

FIVE MORE YEARS OF AUSTERITY TO COME - THE POOR GET POORER, THE RICH GET RICHER.

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LABOUR DOUBLED the debt from 2000 BEFORE any banking crisis. "Having" to borrow £40bn a year when the UK economy is supposedly doing well, is not a good sign.

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The Tories have certainly made more than a few mistakes but when it comes to running the economy I'd rather see them in power than Labour's spendthrift loonies whose only answer seems to be higher taxes, more spending, more borrowing and more public sector jobs. Put them in charge again and see just how bad things can get.

Labour didn't create the world recession, they just mismanaged our economy, especially the banking sector Brown rewarded so often, to such an extent that we became one of the biggest casualties of it. If Labour can't be blamed for that I don't see how the current Govt. can be blamed for what they've had to do in order to deal with the aftermath. How easily some folks forget who doled out all those shiny gongs to failed bankers eh. If it had been a Tory govt. we'd never have heard the end of it would we. Odd that eh?...

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Can everyone stop using unnecessary capitals in their sentences. This isn't Twitter or the comment section of the Daily Mail.

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Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Too true.! I can't recall a single decent Labour govt. in my lifetime. Same old ineptitude and nonsense time and time again. The only difference was that Bliar was better at glossing over the sad reality of what they were up to.

If Labour get back into office some 'ordinary hard working people' are in for a very nasty shock one way or another.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Neither are the Tory's. Bankers are Tory's!

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The record of the Labour Government from '97 to '01 is pretty good. The budget remained in surplus, the minimum wage was introduced, interest rates given to the Bank of England, didn't enter the Euro, the Good Friday agreement, Freedom of Information act and a number of equality laws for people who are gay.

Also from a London point of view the establishment of the GLA and the position of Mayor has helped a lot.

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How much of that budget 'success' was down to what they inherited? God only knows what they'd have done had they inherited a total mess like the ConDems did. Meanwhile they opened up the immigration floodgates and changed this country massively and permanently, they signed us up to more EU interference, they embarked on a massive PFI fest, sold off our gold reserves, raided our pensions etc. etc. Given the economy they inherited, their term in office, the amounts they spent and the parliamentary majority they enjoyed and all their rhetoric about caring for ordinary people, anyone would have thought that stuff like education, the NHS etc would have been sorted in those 13 years. Instead we got Mid Staffs. hospitals, endemic abuse in the 'care' system, banking sector failure, discredited exams results and an NHS in hock to PFI. Great!

Given the opportunity they had, what good they did pales into insignificance when compared to the chaos they left behind and consistently refused to accept responsibility for until they were after our votes once again.


This is what Brown was telling those wonderful bankers he was so in awe of back in 2004:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...ress_56_04.htm

And this is what he admitted in 2011, only after he'd been booted out of office and knowing his political career was over:

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/gord...029361.article

Of course he doesn't say too much about why they ignored the warnings coming from insiders prior to the crash but then he might not be able to dismiss that as just a mistake...

Then there were the internal warnings about out of control spending which was ignored:

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

Just listened to the UKIP manifesto launch. It all sounded excellent. No chance of them getting into power though. Sadly.

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This election won't see the end of UKIP, if we get another 5 years of Labour social engineering their popularity will increase accordingly as will be the case if nothing is done about mass migration by whoever else gains power.

Re: 2015 UK General Election Thread
 

I still think the UKIP vote will get squeezed out as people go back to the Tories or Labour when they see how close the election is going to be. Our electoral system makes it very hard for smaller parties to make any significant gains and realistically one of the major two will be the basis of a new Government but which one could be decided by a handful of votes in a handful of marginal constituencies.

UKIP are also suffering from having to fight a national campaign instead of a localised by-election. They don't have the infrastructure or capability to do it so are focusing on a few seats and in most of them they have to fight sizeable majorities for one of the major parties. Farage is also facing a real fight in his South Thanet target seat and his loss would really cripple UKIP so he is having to spend most of his time there instead of campaigning nationally which is hurting UKIP elsewhere. Finally it looks like Reckless might is serious danger of losing his seat too.