Vote LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

If governments we`ve had were businesses they would have gone bust many times over. They blow the family silver on pet projects, war, themselves and their mates without thinking ahead of the consequences because they know the next lot will take over and the sheep will mostly forget by the time they have a turn again.

 

Copy and paste job this...

Twitter has been full of Labour types slating Liberal Democrat MPs for voting against Labour’s parliamentary motion on the Bedroom Tax. When longstanding critics of the measure like Tim Farron and Julian Huppert vote with the Government, then there has to be a good reason. In fact, there are three.

1. This was just a Labour stunt
It was a parliamentary game to go along with a data gathering exercise Labour have been doing over the past few days. Social media has lit up with a link to a site in Liberal Democrat colours asking people to sign up to stand against the Bedroom Tax. All they wanted was the excuse to put on a leaflet that the Liberal Democrats had voted to keep the Bedroom Tax. Of course, it won’t mention that they voted in favour of Andrew George’s Affordable Homes Bill which made proper, actual sensible changes.
This is not a new tactic. I dare say we’ve used it ourselves plenty times in the past when in opposition. The SNP used to do it all the time when Labour and the Liberal Democrats were in power in Scotland. This may be a good moment to remind people that they (that’s most SNP MPs) never turned up to support Andrew George’s Bill. That’s an aside, though. What happens is that the opposition puts up a motion that even opponents of the measure in the Government couldn’t possibly vote for so that they can make political hay.

2. Labour’s motion did nothing for private sector tenants affected by similar measure introduced by…Labour
Yesterday’s motion was not about actually making anyone’s life better. It had no chance of helping those who are struggling with the Bedroom Tax. Nor did it to anything for those who are stuck in overcrowded accommodation. Even if their motion had passed, it would not have been binding on the Government, nor would it have tackled the hardship faced by people renting in the private sector. We forget that Labour brought something very similar to the Bedroom Tax in for private sector tenants in 2008. Yes, it’s slightly different in that it didn’t apply to existing tenancies, but there is much greater turnover in private sector tenancies, so it’s been causing real difficulties too. We shouldn’t ignore that. Funnily enough, Labour’s motion did ignore the problems they had caused.

3. The amendment that was passed made specific reference to Liberal Democrat policy
Even if you have, like me, seen the flaws in the Bedroom Tax from the start, the Government amendment has space in it for our policy.
That this House regrets that the Government took over a housing benefit bill which was out of control, and without reform would have been more than £26 billion in 2014-15; notes that the reforms the Government has implemented have brought housing benefit spending under control and helped to tackle over-crowding and better manage housing stock; further notes that the Coalition has protected vulnerable groups through £165 million of discretionary housing payments in 2014; notes that, following the interim evaluation of the policy, the part of the Coalition led by the Deputy Prime Minister has proposed reforms to introduce other formal exemptions to the policy, including where claimants have not been made a reasonable alternative offer of accommodation; and believes that the Opposition’s failure to support the Government’s wider welfare reforms, including the wholesale abolition of this policy, is financially unsustainable, and would put at risk savings of nearly £50 billion over the present Parliament, as well as leaving people languishing in over-crowded accommodation.
If anyone is in any doubt that Liberal Democrats are looking to see major reform of this measure, they should read Andrew George’s speech:

"It is not the fault of those who are in housing need that successive Governments have failed to build enough homes of the right size, and they should not be made to pay the penalty for that. It would be nonsense to move disabled people from homes that have been converted, often expensively at taxpayers’ expense, only to have to do it all over again in another property. It is rare in my constituency, and I know in many others, to find a suitable alternative home within 20 or 30 miles. It is wrong that people who have a settled life in a local community should have to uproot themselves from their social and family, and other supportive, connections to meet the requirement of this unacceptable policy.
The fundamental moral point is that the poor are just as entitled to a stable family home as the better off. There are many circumstances where apparent under-occupancy is for a good reason: the visiting carer; the young nest returner coming back to a family home—something that middle-class people expect to offer to their younger people—after perhaps not getting on in life as they anticipated; and those who provide shared care. We should be encouraging housing associations and other social housing providers to build larger homes. When I worked in this sector, I always sought to ensure that social housing providers had some flexibility. Having larger homes provided flexibility in the management of their estate. This policy drives them in the opposite direction. I fear there is also a sinister agenda to create an environment in which poor families will ultimately turn on their poor neighbours and blame them if they are living in overcrowded accommodation, rather than looking further afield to find the real culprit."

But he couldn’t support Labour’s motion

"I have a problem with the Labour party’s motion, partly because it deals only with the social sector, which is odd. If Labour had applied it to the private rented sector, I might have considered voting for it. Above all, I am concerned to deal with this issue seriously. We can either play party politics and come up with the kind of motion the Labour party has come up with today, or we can use the vehicle that is available, the Affordable Homes Bill. Although my amendment has not been accepted for debate, we should still be working together to seek political consensus to help the victims of this policy, instead of using them to score party political points, and that could be done with the money resolution necessary to advance my Bill. The Minister asked how we would pay for it."



So there you go Jager, we were the grown ups trying to find solutions to the problems which considered the whole picture.
The Tories and Labour were just playing politics with the whole issue.

In the interest of balance, here is a Lib Dem councillor pointing out the mistake we made.

Cllr. David Becket 18th Dec '14 - 4:47pm
"As a local councillor for some 20 years I have come across many cases of large families squeezed into one or two bedroom flats, when a three or four bedroom house is occupied by two people. Labour’s proposal does nothing to address this. The flaw in the bedroom tax is that it should only apply when suitable accommodation is offered, as per Andrew George’s bill. Lib Dem MPs should have spotted this right at the start, they warned. This is another example of the leadership not listening, or using common sense. Andrew George is on the right track, we should stick with him."

 

Do you really understand what I said? Perhaps you should read it again as I'm afraid you are just posting something that wasn't even in my reply. Perhaps comprehension and understanding is not something you understand?

Tell you what Terror as you are speaking a load of bollocks, and you keep banging on with this, and you answer questions that haven't been asked, you'd make a perfect MP, why don't you get yourself nominated by the loser party so you can spread the word of bollocks, nobody votes for you and you then lose your deposit?

You'd be perfect for it

 

You seem to think that because we lost votes and seats this time I should give up on what I believe in....write off trying to make a positive difference, give up on hope.

That's not how it works when you believe in something.

It's a bit like supporting the Swans in the 4th division. We had plenty of kicks in the teeth but we didn't give up on it did we.



If winning is your only reason to be in politics or dictates how you vote you end up with a right-wing Labour party.

 

I understand that you don't agree with austerity and the cuts (you stated that the Greens were right on this).
I understand that you voted for a Labour party who proposed austerity and cuts (both at this election and the last one).
I understand that you urged others to vote Labour even though you didn't have much time for them and Milliband.
I understand that you stated that this was tactical voting as they were less bad than the Tories.
I understand that you support a FPTP voting system which forces people into tactical voting as the choice is essentially between 2 parties (2010 is the exception so far).
I understand that you are labelling the Lib Dems "whores" for forming a coalition government with the Tories.....when the only other option was to hold another General Election, plunging the country into short term chaos, costing this country a significant amount of money and all for the inevitable result of a Tory win anyway.
I understand that to do what you suggest and not form the coalition would have resulted in even more cuts that you say you oppose, less taxing the rich, more farming out functions of the NHS to the private sector etc. over the last 5 years....it would seem that you would have preferred this option.
I understand that you are most probably out of pocket due to your (or somebody close to you) benefits/allowance being cut.....guess what, I'm out of pocket to, as the missus and I are paying more taxes and are no longer in receipt of child benefit.

Blame the ****ing Labour party.


Anyone who can follow simple logic can see who is talking bollocks here.

 

pity for you paying more tax,.......there`s people up here where im living fkd from disability allowance cuts>>>>>and before you say it yes there`s lots take this piss out of it(there is) but that's not always the case so have some fking humility ffs.

this country is a greedy fking idol worshipping fk pit of sh.it................there ive said it

 

trouble is in this country, that until people realise our paths are set out by others other than our government then things will not get better>>>>yes a little shift here a little shift there>>>>>>>>sorry but that's not enough the way it works now is we have people begging robbing and murdering for money 2 survive on one end of the scale and on the other side we see millions upon millions wasted on pop stars tv stars film stars sports stars, and don't get me started on that freeloading load of sh.it the Windsor`s and all her fking german ilk

 

Well there are a lot of issues with numbers these days, for instance the 400,000 would have been considered far less than what would have been twenty years ago. Disabilities today are not what were considered disabilities in the 1990's and earlier and those people were very capable of working, for instance the chronic depression which is sometimes called manic depressive is now a disability. I think most will agree that disability does not equal unable to work, despite their screams otherwise. Making them work in other western nations works just fine, it used to work just fine here. It will again now that we know the Tories are undoing Labour's get out of work policy.

I am very sceptical about the £32tn value as well. They are obviously business people to amass such a figure and it is not illegal to buy a state under U.S. Law, and owning a U.S. would be good for their business. But nobody has bought a U.S. State even though you could get one for about ten times its economic output, that puts several U.S. States in their budget. They haven't done it yet because they don't have enough money to do it. Only countries could possibly ever have that amount of money, such as China owning a 50,000sq. mile region in one of the central US States after showing the federal government the money and citing the law allowing it. It's a lease of course but they own it. All of those business people with £32tn would have done it already if there was that amount of cash available to them.

That amount of money is also the same as the total economic output of planet earth today by the way, so that alone is what casts serious doubt on the rumour on a more solid ground. There is less than one single trillion in offshore accounts, the likeliest scenario is there is less than a tenth on a single trillion hidden. We just haven't produced enough money as a planet for it to be stored away from the guise of the governments and multinational banks in such a manner... banks lose out because of these secrecy tax havens by the way, they can operate in more open places with low tax but not in the Antiga's and St. Vincent islands type territories as the black hole of cash disappearing into unknown reserves leads to administrators and shareholders declaring a bankruptcy risk.

And today we see a charity unhappy that criminals will not be guaranteed a free home on release, that is where I am getting at. Genuine disabilities, help them. The rest? Make them pay their way!

 

....but you are helping me make my point. I am not complaining about my drop in income, in fact I have consistently voted against my financial interests.
Why would people in receipt of benefits (paid for by our tax) not expect to lose some of their income too?
Are you seriously telling me that the cost of the bedroom tax £60-80 a month is resulting in "suffering"?
It may be unfair for some, e.g. if you have no option to move to a smaller place, or if you need that spare room, but is it "suffering".
As I referred to earlier. I know somebody who is in receipt of disability allowance (I am very happy that she is, her condition is such that holding down a job would be impossible...I am happy to pay the tax for this) but she used to shop in M&S, ready meals, we don't....we have a low food budget and make stuff from scratch. I could find £15-20 a week from her budget easily, and she has...she's certainly not "suffering".

The country is in a hole and those who can need to pay more and the state also needs to spend less.
The Labour party agreed.
Only the Greens ran on an anti-austerity ticket.

Any cuts made by any government result in somebody somewhere being worse off.
People need to wake up to reality.


.....and as bad a policy as the bedroom tax is it is not the root cause of the pressure on housing which resulted in this policy. The root causes are;

a) the selling off of the housing stock (Council house dwellers, traditional Labour voters, voted for this policy in huge numbers under Thatcher....as it made them richer)
and
b) not enough houses being built in this country for a very long time....the private sector has never built enough houses to keep up, it has always taken state intervention to ensure we have enough houses....the Labour party were in power for 13 years and did nothing to address this, halving the number of houses built by the state compared to Thatcher's government
and
c) More demand - The Labour party vastly underestimated the numbers on immigration
and
d) Planning permission being a slow laborious process and the restrictions on building on the green belt

**** all houses.
**** loads more people needing houses (the population has grown from birth rates also, it's not all about the immigrants).
= A situation where you have huge waiting lists with overcrowded houses.

Trying to swap around the people who have extra bedrooms with the people who need more bedrooms is perfectly logical. They may have set about it the wrong way but it doesn't make them "scum"

b) and c) and a good chunk of d) are directly attributable to the Labour party.

The Labour party's incompetence is the reason why they have lost 2 General Elections on the bounce and labelling the other parties "scum", "whores" and "racists" is deplorable.

If people on this board don't like either the current Tory government or the last coalition government's solutions to the problems they should join a political party who's philosophy most closely resembles their own and start suggesting their own solutions.

 

Claimers !. Half are pensioners mostly retired and mostly worked all their working life contributing and building this country so good luck to them.
And half of claimers are working because their trapped between benefits not enough to keep them and wages not enough to support them so they get a bit of both, while working they hope to get on and better themselves against the odds, good luck to them.
The other 25% not working but claiming Take out of that the the disabled and unable true number unknown ?
So how many are actually just bums ? probably quite a few ? they are the main ones that need to be encouraged to work, help their communities and train etc.. rather than leaching off those that work for a living !

Bed room tax is a joke and sooner they realize that and bin it the better, instead using their brains to tax something else in its place to get the dosh in a less controversial way to the majority here.
And start mass building houses in the many suitable parts of towns, cities etc...with a period of relaxed sensible planning permissions at affordable rents now ffs ! They have the money and it would give 100% benefit to the people in so many ways ! But they never look at the long term benefit just the next 5 years till they may get binned themselves.

The worst thing about it all is they have the means to fix a lot of the problems in this country they always have but a mixture of greed infighting for power and either brainlessness or just pure im alright jack dont give a fek as long as the class elite are ok, means we will never see a country at peace with itself in our life time ?

 

Again, lots of numbers but not the research to back it up.

There is a book called Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

 

what swan said is good enough for me ^^>>>>>>

 

39 quid for breakfast?, best bought brekky I had was in Invercargill, NZ, eggs, bacon, baked beans, snags, hash browns, mushys, tomato and toast with tea/coffee for 8.50, what fking planet are these politicians on

 

You are very naive with regard to the super rich, you questioned my £32 Trillion in offshore accounts figure, but that actually is a conservative estimate from information now coming out from the offshore financial industry due to recent legislation, there will be more revelations in all good time, just wake up and smell the coffee, we are living under a vulgerly corrupt and downright greedy system that is by no means a democracy, to be honest, to defend this corrupt sytem would constitute a joke if it were not so serious a cancer...........

 

There is no legislation from any western powerful nation that these independent tiny offshore nations have to follow. Wake and smell the real world.

For the record I am not saying the system isn't corrupt, we know it is. But all estimates are useless and extremely misleading, these estimates are born out of our own corrupt political parties who will massive meddle with the numbers to divert me and you away from the real problems.

If they can convince you the problem is with people putting their money abroad, then they have succeeded in stopping you looking for their own financial interest in local bank shares they own and get rich from.

 

@ projectvrd


The Guardian and ICIJ's Offshore Secrets series last year exposed how UK property empires have been built up by, among others, Russian oligarchs, fraudsters and tax avoiders, using BVI companies behind a screen of sham directors.

Such so-called "nominees", Britons giving far-flung addresses on Nevis in the Caribbean, Dubai or the Seychelles, are simply renting out their names for the real owners to hide behind.

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks caused a storm of controversy in 2010 when it was able to download almost two gigabytes of leaked US military and diplomatic files.

The new BVI data, by contrast, contains more than 200 gigabytes, covering more than a decade of financial information about the global transactions of BVI private incorporation agencies. It also includes data on their offshoots in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Cook Islands in the Pacific.


BVI= British Virgin Islands

 

And yet none of it matters Phil, the whole thing is conjecture with a political aim.

 

Interesting ? coming to a country near to you .

 

Politics is corrupt from top to bottom from all parties. All minor parties should be abolished as a total waste of time and a waste of tax payers money, it can be better spent. There should be just two choices in either A or B and that way we will at least get the party that the majority of the UK voters want.....

 

Sounds very un democratic like to me Dai