General Election

[RicardoHCAFC]

I just wish we (English) could vote SNP.

Any particular reason? Only I voted SNP at the last Scottish elections in 2011, but having had to put up with the little Jimmy Krankie lookalike since Salmond stepped down is making it impossible for me to even consider it now or in next year's Scottish elections, she's been carrying on as though 45% is more than 55% since the referendum.

 

[Charon]

So a farmer gets some work done for minimum wage. The taxpayer forks out about as much in working tax credits, even more in housing benefits, any health costs for them and their family, education costs for their kids if here, if they aren't here it gets sent back to the country where they came from. Meanwhile these people being employed by these farmers contribute about £1,000 in tax and national insurance. Great value, eh?

just like Allam views the ASI - **** our own lets subsidise the visitors

 

[NorthFerribyTiger]

What on earth does a social worker have to do with socialism or workers. Most of the ones who progress in that profession are middle class types with loads of paper qualifications and no experience of life. Good at holding endless case conferences and meetings and protecting their pensions and benefits when things go wrong. Without the common sense of the average grannies at recognising genuine abuse.

Clearly you don't know exactly what social workers do, not talking about management here.

Over the last 5 years the average case numbers for each social worker has increased by more that 150%

Social workers do a very good & important job & are not only involved in child protection, there are vulnerable adults as well as senior citizens. Much of the paperwork is a result of government interference like the NHS....where nurses are no longer nurses, they spend half their time completing paperwork which in the past would have been done by admin staff on the wards who have now been removed .... social work departments also used to have admin staff, but budget cuts mean they have gone, reducing the time the staff have to do their real jobs & that's before the increased caseloads

 

[NorthFerribyTiger]

Steady on there, OLM. There will be accusations of racism flying about as most EU immigrants are white and not Muslim.

Any figures after deductions for the cost of benefits such as tax credits, child benefits, housing benefits,hospital treatments, education, imprisonment etc of the EU ones?

If you read it properly those are the net figures

 

[Edelman]

I just got stuck behind a UKIP van, slowing rolling along with a loud-hailer, I'm not sure that's going to appeal to voters in Kirk Ella. Which is good, as it was probably that ****er Mike Whitehead.

And I've wasted two hours this morning going to a hospital appointment that was a complete and utter waste of time. The consultant didn't know why I'd been given an appointment to see him, the consultant he thought I should be actually be seeing apparently thought he'd given me the results of my CT scan already, but hadn't. Two CT scans three months apart(because the first one didn't show the organs they needed to see), three months and four phone calls before I get an appointment to find out the result of the second one, then the ****er doesn't even know why I'm seeing him. Turns out the second one is inconclusive and I now need an endoscopy and an ultra sound scan, which will no doubt take two months to arrange, then a further three months to advise me of the results. I'll probably die before I find out what's wrong with me. That'll teach 'em.

That's Tory cutbacks for you
Get used to it if they get back in

 

[NorthFerribyTiger]

That's Tory cutbacks for you
Get used to it if they get back in

Get used to worse....by their own claims only 40% of the necessary cuts have been made so far

 

[Edelman]

Get used to worse....by their own claims only 40% of the necessary cuts have been made so far

Exactly our house is £200 a month worse off already due to funding cutbacks
I expect a lot more if they get in now

 

[originalminority]

Clearly you don't know exactly what social workers do, not talking about management here.

Over the last 5 years the average case numbers for each social worker has increased by more that 150%

Social workers do a very good & important job & are not only involved in child protection, there are vulnerable adults as well as senior citizens. Much of the paperwork is a result of government interference like the NHS....where nurses are no longer nurses, they spend half their time completing paperwork which in the past would have been done by admin staff on the wards who have now been removed .... social work departments also used to have admin staff, but budget cuts mean they have gone, reducing the time the staff have to do their real jobs & that's before the increased caseloads

My god not the paperwork excuses, in the good old days before proper procedures when doctors and nurses and social workers teachers were all allowed to do their jobs we gave *****s like Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris free reign!

 

[Edelman]

W

Clearly you don't know exactly what social workers do, not talking about management here.

Over the last 5 years the average case numbers for each social worker has increased by more that 150%

Social workers do a very good & important job & are not only involved in child protection, there are vulnerable adults as well as senior citizens. Much of the paperwork is a result of government interference like the NHS....where nurses are no longer nurses, they spend half their time completing paperwork which in the past would have been done by admin staff on the wards who have now been removed .... social work departments also used to have admin staff, but budget cuts mean they have gone, reducing the time the staff have to do their real jobs & that's before the increased caseloads

Well said.
What some on here don't realise is that it's already stretched to breaking point and another 60% will decimate it.
But hay oh as long as pricks like Lewis Hamilton , Philip Green and the likes can live tax free life's while someone on £20,000 per year as to pay their dues let's have this lot back in shall we

 

[HCAFC (Airlie Tiger)]

The mis-informed hysteria like this? http://www.newser.com/story/205786/oklahoma-yes-fracking-causes-earthquakes.html

An earthquake is cause by a sudden and rapid release of energy along a geological fault.

Without getting into the geology of Oklahoma (and the areas which are undergoing fracking) it's an area which would be prone to such events during fracking, it was a bad choice to frack there, simple as that.

The UK has completely different geology, fracking alone will not cause any significant earthquakes, so strategic planning of fracking sites, taking into the regional and local geology would be enough to reduce this risk.

There are hundreds of sites in the UK that meet this criteria.

 

[Amin Arrears]

We'll just have to agree to differ then.
What the Coalition government has done to profoundly disabled and terminally I'll people by insisting they are capable of working via cruel and ludicrous assessments is nothing short of disgraceful.

That may well be true however sales for disability equipment, which is probably 99% government/nhs funded, have been on a massive rise since this Tory government came in and are now higher than ever before.

Last year I did some work for the Greencore group & when talking to some managers I discovered that if it were not for migrant EU workers who were willing to do the repetitive jobs in their factories that many of them would have had to close. They quoted the pickle factory in Selby as a prime example, they had tried the UK born locals, they had even tried the surrounding area by providing transport to/from Selby but they could not recruit......they could not increase wages as profit margins were not very high & their main customers...the supermarkets were constantly putting downward pressure on prices. They now employ a workforce which must be around 70-80% Polish & Eastern European, without those workers we would be importing all the things they produce.

At least this way the Europeans are contributing, spending money in local communities, paying tax & NI & the company is supporting local farmers & UK suppliers of the other ingredients they need. The whole situation is not as black & white as it sometimes appears

There are there benefits to them being here as well. How many of you enjoy the luxury of having your car hand washed/waxed/polished for relatively little whilst you go out and do the shopping? They run a lot of these sort of little operations that make our lives easier.

On the flip side, I have a mate who's a supervisor at a huge company. The workers there fought long and hard to get and keep a lunch break, the Eastern Europeans don't care about a lunch break and carry on working, which has seen a load of british workers laid off and replaced with an influx of Eastern Europeans working an hour less instead.

There's positives and negatives big and small on each side of every topic.

 

[Chilton's Hundreds]

Get used to worse....by their own claims only 40% of the necessary cuts have been made so far

Proof that as a nation we live beyond our means.

What's the other option ? Spend more and keep adding to the overall debt and hope that interest rates never rise above 5% again?

Currently the debt is around £1.4tr and as a country we pay around 4% on our gilts which historically is very low. It's already costing over £50b to fund the debt.
If that rises to £1.8tr for example and we end up paying 6-7% interest then that will be over £100b in interest payments every year.

That's around half of what we spend on the NHS. No, the deficit and overall debt has to be a priority.

However, it needn't all be spending cuts. We could raise taxes, corporation tax being one example or maybe a land tax.

The paradox is of course, the one party that sees reducing the debt as a priority has the support of the very people that unfortunately see taxes as a cost for only the 'little people'. We have incredible wealth in this country and only a small % of that would be enough to pay off the debt instantly. But you try and get those ****ers to part with their wealth.....

 

[NorthFerribyTiger]

Proof that as a nation we live beyond our means.

What's the other option ? Spend more and keep adding to the overall debt and hope that interest rates never rise above 5% again?

Currently the debt is around £1.4tr and as a country we pay around 4% on our gilts which historically is very low. It's already costing over £50b to fund the debt.
If that rises to £1.8tr for example and we end up paying 6-7% interest then that will be over £100b in interest payments every year.

That's around half of what we spend on the NHS. No, the deficit and overall debt has to be a priority.

However, it needn't all be spending cuts. We could raise taxes, corporation tax being one example or maybe a land tax.

The paradox is of course, the one party that sees reducing the debt as a priority has the support of the very people that unfortunately see taxes as a cost for only the 'little people'. We have incredible wealth in this country and only a small % of that would be enough to pay off the debt instantly. But you try and get those ****ers to part with their wealth.....

The entire deficit & debt could be wiped out in as little as 5 years if just one EU suggested policy were introduced

The EU would like to see a tiny % tax on global financial transactions (ie those through the stock markets)....a tax on these transactions of 0.5% would raise enough revenue over 10 years to completely eliminate the debt & allow a general rate of taxation of around 10%

If this tax were to be 1% then the debt & deficit could be gone over the term of the next government & in 10 years there would be no need for anyone to pay tax on under £20k a year

The problem is that the people who would be hit hardest are those who bankroll most of the right wing parties globally

 

[Amin Arrears]

W

Well said.
What some on here don't realise is that it's already stretched to breaking point and another 60% will decimate it.
But hay oh as long as pricks like Lewis Hamilton , Philip Green and the likes can live tax free life's while someone on £20,000 per year as to pay their dues let's have this lot back in shall we

There's two ways of looking at it, I see it more about keeping these people here, living and spending their money in the UK. I'm sure they put more into the countries economy whilst they live here paying a lower percentage in tax than they would living in Monaco.

 

[Walter Sobchak]

Tories inherited around £850 billion UK debt & after 5 years it is now heading towards £1.5 Trillion

Unemployment is down by almost the same number that zero hours contracts have risen

Out of work benefits have fallen, but in work benefits have risen by more than the reduction

The single room subsidy has pushed tenants of social housing into the hands of private landlords, this has increased the housing benefit bill, left councils with a multi million rent shortfall & thousands of houses which they can no longer rent as there are not the families to rent them

Hundreds of sick have died in poverty waiting for the "fit to work" scheme assessments/appeals

NHS A&E waiting times have never been so bad

There is more tax being evaded/avoided now by big companies than when the current government came to power despite reductions in corporation tax

The Tories have promised a referendum on EU membership AFTER a treaty renegotiation, something the EU have said will not happen & even if it did the Tories, Lib Dems & Labour would all be campaigning against leaving

The government says it believes in lifelong education yet has increased tuition fees (my lads currently have student loans which will take decades to repay) & they have massively reduced budgets for FE colleges (by 30% this year alone) & have reduced or removed much of the course funding that was available to adults

The Tories introduced the badger cull which has been shown to have virtually no impact on bovine TB cases & may have increased it's spread while massacring a protected species

A future Tory government will repeal the ban on hunting with dogs



I know in my constituency my vote will make very little difference but what I do know is that no Conservative or UKIP candidate will get it

Well if we're making lists - Labour: The Blair/Brown years

Massive national debt

Huge public sector pension deficit

Gold sold at record lows

Unemployment rising

Years of uncontrolled immigration leading to an overloading of schools, hospitals, public services in general

Over 100 different tax rises - the longest national tax code in the world

Number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000

The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world

Hospital infection rates through the roof

Falling dramatically in the rankings concerning education in maths and literacy, and world competitiveness

Small business' taxes going up and up

Boom and bust abolished (ARF!)

Post offices closed even if profitable

Dodgy dossiers and the Iraq war

How much information and personal details went ‘missing’

Mandleson and Campbell

Introduction of student fees

Gave away the EU rebate

Decline in manufacturing

Slowest growth for 50 years

Longest recession since the war

etc. etc. etc. etc.

 

[Chilton's Hundreds]

The entire deficit & debt could be wiped out in as little as 5 years if just one EU suggested policy were introduced

and what's that ?

 

[Steven Toast]

Yes, I passed a field full of person with PhDs from Iraq toiling away in the fields on my way to the supermarket where I was served by a pleasant brain surgeon from Somalia. The group of maths professors from Romania who cleaned my car at the local car wash did a good job as well.

Okay....immigrants don't just come from poor countries, anybody who relocates here from any country is an immigrant. All the students studying medicine at our universities, all the potential lawyers, teachers, scientists are wasting our money because....what they aren't British? Or do they not count either? What about American immigrants?

So let me get this straight, when the working class man gets annoyed at immigrants, they aren't getting annoyed at all immigrants. So in fact, immigrants would be the wrong word to use. What you mean is, people who move here for a better quality of life and to scrounge our benefits? Well yeah, obviously we don't like those people. But then, I don't much care for British people who do it either.

Furthermore, I have nothing against the Romanian/Kosovan people at the car-washes, shows how business savvy they are. How many British run hand car wash businesses were there in Hull before they started? If a working class person can't get a job in a factory because some bloke from Poland took his job, then they don't deserve the job. For ****s sake, you need NO qualifications to do that kind of work, so if you can't get a job that requires no qualifications and your response is "bloody immigrants took all our jobs", then you're wrong. They just took all the **** jobs that required no qualifications or aspirations to undertake. I'm not going to sweat it if Don from the Estates can't get a low paying job because he got beaten in the interview by Zlatan from Moldova. Tough ****, work on your interview technique, get some qualifications behind you and make yourself a more attractive prospect for employers.

What's that? It's cheaper to pay foreigners to do the work of an Englishman? Let me just check the rules employment law.....

It's just ****ing excuses for lazy people who can't get even the ****est of jobs.

 

[Chilton's Hundreds]

The entire deficit & debt could be wiped out in as little as 5 years if just one EU suggested policy were introduced

The EU would like to see a tiny % tax on global financial transactions (ie those through the stock markets)....a tax on these transactions of 0.5% would raise enough revenue over 10 years to completely eliminate the debt & allow a general rate of taxation of around 10%

If this tax were to be 1% then the debt & deficit could be gone over the term of the next government & in 10 years there would be no need for anyone to pay tax on under £20k a year

The problem is that the people who would be hit hardest are those who bankroll most of the right wing parties globally

I don't disagree with that at all.

In fact it would also stabilise exchange rates and stock markets. A lot of these algorithmic programs buy and sell every second for a tiny % profit. A financial tax
of 0.5% would make those sorts of trades impossible.

 

[RicardoHCAFC]

Ah yes the NHS, so the problems are all down to top down reorganisations, really? Not an aging population or rapid population growth?

Is it fair that the English pay prescription charges but the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish don't?

Probably not, but as that's just redirected funds from elsewhere in order to be headline grabbing I wouldn't get too worked up about it. It's a bit like the falseness of "free" university places. When it comes to paying "loans" after uni, unless we're really high fliers we end up paying back £13,500 more than English students that earn the same wages throughout their life. That figure is going to get bigger due to the payment levels being adjusted by inflation.

*assuming starting salary is £21-35k rising with inflation so that both are making payments but neither will "pay it off" in full before it gets wiped.

 

[HU15 Tiger]

UKIP for me

 

[Tobes]

An earthquake is cause by a sudden and rapid release of energy along a geological fault.

Without getting into the geology of Oklahoma (and the areas which are undergoing fracking) it's an area which would be prone to such events during fracking, it was a bad choice to frack there, simple as that.

The UK has completely different geology, fracking alone will not cause any significant earthquakes, so strategic planning of fracking sites, taking into the regional and local geology would be enough to reduce this risk.

There are hundreds of sites in the UK that meet this criteria.

You can't state that as a fact.

There's simply not enough known about how shale gas /oil extraction would affect the British sub terrain, to make any sort of informed comment.

However, what we do know is how it's affected other areas of the globe and the environments that surround the activity, both during and post extraction. The idea that it can be done without significant negative impact on an island as small as ours is absolutely mad.