Off Topic Political Debate

I would support a party of the left - I have voted Liberal more often than for other parties - but not an economically incompetent party that destroys wealth and makes everybody worse off. Fairness and parity are like Apple Pie - we all support them
I do not understand your comment about not being possible to have a discussion about values without minimising them. Please explain.
The middle classes pay the right wing price - what does that mean?

I think you need to consider what you want to take from Mr Average to pay for others "rights". Too often it is Mr Average not fat cat bankers and super rich who are the ones who fund welfare - without adequate discussion of the balance between them.

 

Senior management like footballers rely on supply and demand. There has been some instances in recent years where shareholders have blocked the excesses of board members but its a too rare event. The problem being you need majority shares to effect some control.

 

I couldn't afford a mortgage on a house in Birmingham either. Or in most places in the UK. It'd take me about 2 years to save up 10k if I lived in a squat and spent about £20 a week, yet I'm earning decent money. Everything is set up to stop people having an 'easy' way out, you can live far from your job for cheaper rent, but the exorbitant travel costs will ruin any savings you make. Most jobs outside the SE pay peanuts in comparison, so I couldn't go work somewhere cheaper, it just wouldn't add up. And I'm not talking about buying a 4 bedroom house on the seafront here, I'm just talking about a basic flat.

If they pay their share of taxes, and the money they're getting is out of the company they work for, then they can charge more. A progressive rate makes sense, as in anything earned over £100k a year gets taxed at 90%, but 50% for over 50k. It's not impossible to make people pay the correct taxes due on their income, governments just avoid enforcing it.

Doesn't matter, people wouldn't mind being classified as 'poor' if they can actually pay their bills and eat healthily every night.

Salaries have not stagnated due to the financial crisis (which the Tories would have made A LOT worse if they were in power at the time - they were for more deregulation in the banking sector), it's just down to greed. This recession talk has just been an excuse for the Tories to slash the bits of the state expenditure they don't agree with, whilst at the same time selling of as many government assets to their pals as possible.

One thing that hasn't been brought up is the Royal Family. They live for free on the taxpayer, we have no right to vote on their continual reign, and now they've just created another one for us to pay for. And please, none of this talk of 'they make us a fortune', they really don't...They'd be the first cut to government expenditure I'd make.

 

Yorkie - did you check out the comments?

 

The welfare expenditure is far from being just jobseekers allowance...

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Too many political topics are not properly discussed. Other have mentioned Immigration and the R word or NHS and the P word - you could add Welfare and anotherP word.

The reason I find it difficult to support Labour - apart from economic incompetence in every previous government - is their use of soundbite politics. They learn the words that substitute for reasoned debate. Who could ever defend a "fat cat" banker? Who has any understanding or sympathy for the super-rich? This then gets picked up and policies are twisted intonoxiuos phrases "the bedroom tax and food banks" In fact the bedroom tax is of course not a bedroom tax - it is in fact a very good idea in theory totally mismanaged and incompetently implemented. Why would you support people taking public money to live in a house larger than they need - it makes no sense. It is not a tax anyway but a refusal to give additional handouts to what are needed. As it happens it takes no account of people with disabilities' needs and no account of where people who are denied the benefit can go into a smaller property. So it is stupid and wrong - but let us at least acknowledge the prinicple that is correct. Food banks - now there is a real left wing rallying cry. Yet these multiplied more under the last Labour government than the coalition and are the result of a recesssion exacerbated by Labour and not yet resolved. Yet what are they really. Something over 900,000people have used them. You can only use them 3 times in a year - 3 out of 365 days is less than 1% - so are we really saying this 1% of food is the difference between starvation and comfort for them? No- they are a great political football. Every person supporting the left wing and anti-Tory has a vested interest in getting people to use them tohelp show how our society is failing. Really 1% of difference in a year? Look at the people seen going to them - every single one probably has a mobile phone, many smoke, drink and have nicely manicured nails - don't believe me - look at some of them. OK - I am deliberately arguing an extreme here and accept that food banks do really help some people - but not the numbers quoted.

 

To quote the obvious - did anyone suggest otherwise?

 

It's the "rights" bit I was referring to...

 

All this talk about being happy to spend an extra £50 a month to help the needy, nothing stopping any of us!!!! I already spend much more than this a month on regular chosen charitable giving to help those I see as genuinely needy. I'd much rather do this than put it into a government coffer to be squandered/stolen/misused. Education is the key.

 

So your concern about the outcome of that referendum was all about the people of Scotland and what would happen to them as a result? Somehow I can't believe that - you tend to show little compassion for many English who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances...

What I'd really like to know is why, at that time, the cries and jibes from south of the border were all of the you can't afford it, please don't go, come and join us type, whereas now they all belong to the we subsidise you, get back in your box and you can't participate in our democratic government type. In other words, why object and conduct a campaign in the manner in which it was?

Of course, I do know the answer to whether or not an independent Scotland would have been successful, but that is all moot - for the moment.

 

Have you ever been too poor to buy food? Honestly?

Do you think that over a million people went there just for a night out? How ashamed do you think some people must feel at having to stoop to this to be able to feed their families? I fail to see your point there. Are you saying people going to foodbanks shouldn't need to go get food?

 

With you Lenny - add the "Mansion Tax" to the Labour soundbites that hide another unworkable policy. The super-rich will have ways to avoid it and even the upper middle classes in Westminster and Islington will have avoidance schemes - I wonder if Russell Bland will have to pay on the house he rents fron an offshore company?

 

"Look at the people seen going to them - every single one probably has a mobile phone, many smoke, drink and have nicely manicured nails - don't believe me - look at some of them."

This remains an interesting debate which occasionally slips from evidenced reasoning to anecdotal stereotypes. Keep up the high standards, chaps.

 

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That could well be because the 'P' word in all probability goes hand in hand with, if this government have anything to do with it, a change to a US style health system - one in which everything costs and requires insurance. Now more than ever, the bulk of the population simply cannot afford that.

Personally, I have nothing against a system whereby service is delivered by both public and private providers - have been used to that for all of my adult life - but only if I can be sure that whichever is accessed remains free at point of service. No matter that Cameron has suddenly started shouting to the media along those lines though - I simply don't believe him due to his track record.

 

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Harold Wilson tried your excessive tax rates and it lead to a 'brain drain' as it was called at the time. Imagine all the doctors, engineers and even Troy Deeney packing their suitcases for more sensible tax regimes. Are you coming up with wish lists or trying to find a serious policy.?

One idea for the new left wing alliance after Thursday is to force the young royals to sleep in separate beds. Just think how many new jobs that would create enforcing that.!!!

 

You simply have no evidence that the coalition or even the tories have any plan to change to a US style health system. This is just scare tactic nonsense.

 

I fundamentally agree with you BB, but again you have fallen into the P word trap. There has been no mass privatisation of services in the NHS under this government. In fact compared to the PFI activities under Blair and Brown they would almost pale into insignificance. No government will ever change the concept of being free at the point of service, but the current funding model is broken and needs overhauling - that cannot be denied. 2 billion, 8 billion, 20 billion, no matter what is promised will never be enough.

 

Just to clear this one up Leo. Half of the things in the British museum were originally nicked but that doesn't mean that the present curator is a thief. It is the same here - land ownership is probably the mother of all other forms of ownership and the first private claiming of land had little if not no legal basis - that is different from saying that the present owners are all crooks. I do not think there is one acre of land west of the Mississippi which does not have a history of genocide behind its original ownership (or theft) but that does not reflect on the present owners.