Off Topic Great Britain General Election May 7th 2015.

That's been making the rounds for a while, love it

 

Election 2015: Economy debate takes centre stage

• From the section Election 2015

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Election campaigning is to focus on the economy as Labour and the Tories attack each other's plans before independent analysts present their verdict.
Labour leader Ed Miliband will claim the Tories are planning "the biggest cuts anywhere in the developed world".
But Conservative Chancellor George Osborne highlighted what he called the "frightening" cost of a Labour government supported by the SNP.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies is to assess pledges on Thursday morning.
It will release its analysis of the policies presented by the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP.
However, BBC political correspondent Ben Geoghegan said it was "unlikely to settle what are some of the most contested issues in this election campaign".
In other election news:

• The Liberal Democrats will pledge a £150m support package for carers
• Former Prime mMnister Gordon Brown has attacked the Conservatives and the SNP in a letter to voters and a speech in Fife
• UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the tone he has used on issues including immigration and HIV was designed to "get noticed"

The IFS has previously said the differences between Labour and the Conservatives' deficit reduction strategies were "pretty stark".
The Conservatives are planning an overall budget surplus by 2019-20. Labour would deliver a surplus only on the current budget and allow higher spending on investment.
Policy guide: Economy
This issue includes the wider economy and deficit reduction but also employment and the role of business.
Compare parties' policies

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Policy guide: Where the parties stand
Labour highlighted an analysis from the International Monetary Fund, claiming it showed Conservative cuts planned for the next three years would be "bigger than anywhere else among the world's 33 advanced economies".
Mr Miliband will claim spending cuts outlined in last month's Budget would be "double the pace next year than this year".
At an NHS rally in Leeds, he will say: "The Tories are committed to the most extreme spending plans of any political party in generations.
"It is a plan so extreme that far from protecting the NHS they would end up cutting the NHS."
Chancellor George Osborne, meanwhile, used an interview in the Daily Telegraph to renew the Conservatives' attack on Labour over the possibility of the party being supported in government by the SNP.
Mr Miliband has ruled out a formal coalition with the SNP if his party falls short of a majority on 7 May, but the Conservatives say there could be a looser arrangement with Labour relying on SNP support to win Commons votes.
Mr Osborne cited a Treasury estimate of the SNP's spending plans that said they would trigger an extra £6bn in debt interest payments.
"There's a real cost for families," Mr Osborne told the Telegraph.
"It's equivalent to just over £350 per family."
Labour called the chancellor's comments "ludicrous" and said they were "based on old figures".
They came after Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted footage of former SNP leader Alex Salmond suggesting he would be writing a Labour government's first Budget. The prime minister said voters would be shocked, but Mr Salmond dismissed it as a "light-hearted remark".
The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, say they would offer currently unpaid carers a £250 payment to "ease the cost" of looking after relatives who need at least 35 hours' support over 12 months.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said carers were "the unsung heroes of British society".

 

Tory farmers round my way have put banners and flags everywhere, my vote is a ****ing waste.

 

I got my 'first' election leafet this morning from Labour, it might as well be the only one(it probably will be),this place is a Labour safe seat.

 

From uncyclopedia
In December 1998, it was revealed that Mandelson had diverted 75% of the UK GDP for that year for the construction of his own personal Death star.



#labour

 

I think local issues are going to count much in this election than the national issues.

 

Literally nowt in the news about evil Russia evacuating Britons and Yanks from yemen after being abandoned by their own govs

It's not fit news during election time I guess, that the Tores abandoned their own citizens.

 

Writing this from Mallorca!! Like someone has said before, there is likely to be a surge in Tory support. I predict a 20 seat majority for Cameron. Then I would like to see him get into a political bed with Angela Merkel!!!!

 

Fixed

 

So go down to the Bookies, find out the odds and if that happens, drown our sorrows!! If there is no overall majority perhaps Tories will do a deal with
Lib Dems,(unlikely), DUP (very likely), UKIP (if they have any seats? Cameron would have to be off his rocker to do any deal there so no chance) Labour ...well, why not?

 

UKIP would be a fairly easy deal to make tbh, offer a referendum on Europe and you've pretty much got UKIP on side. Don't see why Cameron would be off his rocker to do a deal with UKIP, particularly if as expected they get 13-15% of the vote as it would add credibility to the government in terms of voter numbers even if UKIP don't end up with many seats.

Lib dems will happily work with the Tories or labour if they get the opportunity to be the balance of power again.

Dup as you say could well do a deal with the Tories.

Greens, plaid or snp will happily buddy up with labour but not the Tories.

All sorts of possible coalition outcomes and if the snp aren't involved it'll likely be a 3 party coalition.

 

Election 2015: Voters 'left in the dark', says IFS

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Four of the major parties have not provided "anything like full details" on plans to cut the deficit, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.
"Broad outlines" of the choice on offer were on show, it said, but voters were "somewhere in the dark" over cuts planned by the main UK parties and SNP.
The Conservatives would have to cut services and Labour borrow £26bn a year, the independent body suggested.
It said the difference between the two approaches was the biggest since 1992.
The two largest parties again attacked each other's economic plans.
The Conservatives said a Labour government backed by the SNP would be "deeply unstable", as Labour said the Tories planned "the biggest cuts in the developed world".
In other election news:

• The coalition received a pre-election boost with official figures showing it beat its target for reducing annual public sector borrowing for the latest financial year
• The Liberal Democrats pledged a £150m support package for carers
• SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party would prop up a minority Labour government even if the Conservatives had a 40-seat lead
• An east London election was declared void and will have to be re-run after the mayor was found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices
• The head of the UK's returning officers' organisation said the number of uncontested seats at some local elections has reached "epidemic proportions"

The IFS report comes after it analysed each of the party manifestos.
The think tank's deputy director Carl Emmerson said: "There are genuinely big differences between the main parties' fiscal plans.
"The electorate has a real choice, although it can at best see only the broad outlines of that choice."

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The analysis found Conservative plans for the next Parliament involve "a significantly larger reduction in borrowing and debt than Labour plans", Mr Emmerson said.
But the report said that was based on "substantial and almost entirely unspecified spending cuts and tax increases" and could involve "further real cuts to unprotected departments of around £30 billion".
Labour had been "considerably more vague" about how much it wants to borrow, the report said.
'Longer period'
It added that the Liberal Democrats had been more transparent about overall plans to 2017-18, saying they were aiming for tightening spending more than Labour but less than the Conservatives.
And it said the SNP's figures imply the same reduction in borrowing as Labour, although the reduction would be slower.
This means the party is proposing a slower but longer period of austerity, the think tank said.
The report said of the SNP: "Their stated plans do not necessarily match their anti-austerity rhetoric."
Cameron to unveil plans for England-only income tax from 2016
PM’s new manifesto set to underline Tories’ determination to squeeze ‘weakening’ of Ukip voters’ resolve in the south of England

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Cameron: ‘We do not support English nationalists, we do not want an English parliament, we are the Conservative and Unionist party through and through.’ Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images
Patrick Wintour Political editor
Friday 24 April 2015 00.01 BST Last modified on Friday 24 April 2015 07.11 BST

David Cameron will place himself at the head of English nationalism by promising to introduce England-only income tax from 2016 as well as publishing an English manifesto with specific commitments on jobs, health and housing.
The move will be unveiled in one of the stronger areas of Ukip support, and underlines the extent to which Cameron is determined to squeeze what he believes is a weakening of Ukip voters’ resolve in the south. A serious crack in the Ukip vote – which until now has been resilient – is a precondition of a Tory majority government.
Cameron’s repeated warnings to the English of the dangers of the Scottish National party holding the balance of power at Westminster has been directed primarily at the same Ukip vote, and Conservative strategists insist it is working on the doorstep.
Setting out plans for an English income tax, Cameron will begin by referring to changes in Scotland. “Soon the Scottish parliament will be voting to set its own levels of income tax – and rightly so – but that has clear implications. English MPs will be unable to vote on the income tax paid by people in Aberdeen and Edinburgh while Scottish MPs are able to vote on the tax you pay in Birmingham or Canterbury or Leeds. It is simply unfair.”
The Scottish Labour leader, Jim Murphy, warned that Cameron was playing with fire by using what he described as crude and cheap tactics. “You don’t defeat Scottish nationalism with David Cameron’s English nationalism. You do it with social solidarity,” Murphy said at a rally in Scotland.
Brown launched a strong attack on the SNP, saying there was no chance of a deal between Labour and the SNP and adding that the SNP put showing that Westminster could not deliver on issues such as the bedroom tax ahead of providing real help for the poor.
He said Labour would provide 171 food banks in Scotland with £5,000 each within 24 hours of Labour being elected.
Brown has also written to 350,000 households to warn that SNP plans for “devo max” – enhanced devolved powers – would mean sharp cuts in public spending, including a threat to the state pension.
Speaking in Kirkcaldy, he said: “The SNP wake up in the morning thinking of how to make Scotland independent. We wake up in the morning thinking of how to advance social justice and that is why it has to be the Labour party which is writing the first budget and not Alex Salmond, who does not share our sense of priorities and who must share the blame for failing to address poverty as first minister.
“The SNP dream is about constitutional change. Our dream is about social change.”

 

#promising


have people got amnesia, almost every election promise EVER has ben broken

 

Ukip will be virtually irrelevant in the post election horse trading as they're forecast to win between 1 and 4 seats.

The mostly likely outcome is a Labour / SNP alliance.

 

HSBC to **** off to China
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32443930

EU membership or no EU membership, corporations don't like taxes and regulations.

 

More than 10000 jobs is going to be on the line.

 

if you left the EU like?

 

Labour to call on Michael Heseltine if it wins election
The former Conservative deputy prime minister is being lined up by the shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, to advise Labour in government

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Michael Heseltine. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Nicholas Watt Chief political correspondent
Friday 24 April 2015 15.01 BST Last modified on Friday 24 April 2015 19.13 BST

Lord Heseltine, the former Tory deputy prime minister who championed the regeneration of Britain’s inner cities in the 1980s, is being lined up by the shadow business secretary to advise Labour in government.
In a sign of how some Labour figures will try to revive the “big tent” approach of Tony Blair, Chuka Umunna described Heseltine as a visionary who could advise him on plans for the further devolution of power to the English cities and regions.
“There is no denying it, a lot of people in the Labour movement are quite inspired by what he’s done in rejuvenating cities and regions,” he told the Guardian. “Just because he is a Tory should not stand in the way of us working with him in the future and I very much hope to do that.”
Umunna, who is expected to be appointed business secretary if Labour wins the election, hopes Heseltine would advise him on the distribution of £30bn the party plans to earmark for devolution to the cities and regions. Heseltine proposed in a 2011 report for the chancellor, George Osborne, that £49bn administered by central government and £9bn in EU funding should be put into a similar pot.
“Hubris from a Tory party that forgot it had not won a general election since 1992, humility on the part of the Labour party which recognised that it went down to its second worst defeat in history in 2010 and needed to listen and learn from people which is what we’ve done during our time in opposition.”
Umunna also draws a distinction between Tony Blair’s intervention in favour of Britain’s EU membership and the warning by Sir John Major that a possible post election deal between Labour and the SNP could threaten the future of the UK. “I think Tony Blair’s intervention on Europe was somewhat more effective than John Major’s intervention on the SNP.”
Umunna used his interview to give a flavour of the political reforms a Labour cabinet would implement. These would start with Miliband’s plans for a people’s question time and an overhaul of some of the traditional features of parliament such as the portcullis.
He says: “The portcullis is a symbol for what is the problem. It is a gate that stops people going through and that’s symbolic of the way the institution and the architecture of the place operates so as to lock people out, it switches people off. They switch on, zone out and then switch off because they don’t like the way we do things.”

 

I remember when the foot and mouth thing was on @ 2000. My daughter was at some posh prep school at the time (hey, it was cheaper than childcare and the last year we got vouchers to pay for two-thirds of it; I'd advise anyone to do it) and it was full of the kids of wealthy lawyers, bankers, insurance - York was the head of Norwich Union at the time - and this, of course, included the wealthiest subsidy junkies of the lot: our horny-handed sons of the toil. A game I used to play with my daughter when I picked her up was to count all the "Buy British beef" stickers on the Cherokee Jeeps, Mitsubushi Shoguns, Mercedes 4x4's and Volvo estates.

 

Had the full set by the end of last week, blues, reds, yellows, greens and whatever colour UKIP are. Oh yeah. White.