General Election

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Just finished work and can't be arsed to read the whole of this thread. So **** knows how you lot hot talking about roundabouts.

But I will say...

Come on you reeeeeeeds!!!
 
Just finished work and can't be arsed to read the whole of this thread. So **** knows how you lot hot talking about roundabouts.

But I will say...

Come on you reeeeeeeds!!!


Giant, common, saxophone or clarinet reeeeeeeds?
 
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I think some people fail to realise how perilously close we were to meltdown in 2008. A couple of hours away from major banks going bust by some reports.
The Labour Government had a choice - let the banks go bust and we'd have seen an economic depression. They did what they had to do so billions of pounds were
printed (it's the click of a mouse these days by the BofE) and lent to those banks that needed it and in some cases used to buy shares in banks.

I remember Alistair Darling's 2009 budget speech when he outlined how much the Government had to borrow over the next few years, with gasps of horror coming
from the Commons. Again, Labour did what they had to do. Recession is better the a Depression.

That meant the Coalition took over with record debt and an annual deficit of around £150b. The deficit has come down to around £90b now but that means as a country we're still racking up the overall debt. This is why we'll see record low interest rates for another 5 years at least.

So, blame the Tories, blame the Lib Dems, blame Labour the fact is we have, and continue to, live beyond our means.

The truth is we can't afford our welfare spending. The NHS is too big (I'm sure it's current size was never planned back in 1948), property prices and rents are too high, we have too many people living on these islands, I could go on.

Maybe a crash in 2008 could have pressed the re-set button but, hey-ho, what's done is done.

I was going to slam your post for not mentioning moral hazard and pressing the reset button (we are in a depression in all but the negative growth required to confirm that) - what with the biflation that continues to infest our daily lives. Growth is only positive due to massive net migration. Per capita we are a slowly boiling frog. Debt is far too cheap and the government continue to pile it up. Eventually we will get to the point where the interest on the debt is so much no other services will be affordable. At this point we can kiss goodbye to the NHS (if it hasn't already been privatised), any welfare spending and you'll be working until 90 to get any pittance of a pension. Oh, and the currency will probably be junk by then due to over-zealous printing.
 
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.

We could have had another election by then!
 
Some good news, some bad...

Immigrants from Poland and the other nine countries that joined the EU in 2004 have contributed almost £5 billion more to the UK’s economy than they used in benefits and public services.

Analysis by the University College London Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration found that while the fiscal contribution by European workers was overwhelmingly positive – amounting to £20 billion in a decade – the same was not true for non-EEA arrivals.

Between 1995 and 2011, immigrants from outside the EU made a negative contribution of £118 billion over 17 years, the report found, using more publicly-funded services, including the NHS, education and benefits, than they paid in tax.

Of that £5bn net benefit, how much is being paid to the displaced in tax credits?
 
If all are away and no decisions are being made then no-one needs to be there to represent their opinion.

If you think those 6 weeks are essentially 'time off' then your mistaken, most are still doing valuable work to ensure their constituency has their voices heard.

I know the one I used to do accountancy for buggered off on holiday using a house swap (their second home in London, not the one in their home constituency) and wrote books for 6 weeks.
 
Cameron is the only leader amongst them. Milliband sold out to the unions to stab his brother in the back and will sell everyone out to anyone the moment he sees a chance to profit, Cleggs a wet cloth who probably need to be told what lothes to wear and Farage will say and promise anything that he thinks will make him popular.
It's sad, but that's why the Tories will walk it, they have the only leader.
 
Hope this thread stays open.....be nice to get the `common mans` side of developments :)
 
A points-based immigration policy would be fair and sensible; judging people on skills, qualifications and work ethic rather than their country of origin. The current system discriminates in favour of Europeans and against those who are not from the EU. It's important to control immigration but it's important to do it fairly. The EU was good when it was just a trade agreement but now it's too bureaucratic.

Does that mean we would have to have all our coffin dodgers back from Spain etc where they go to retire in the sun & would score zero points on any system !!
 
I was going to slam your post for not mentioning moral hazard and pressing the reset button (we are in a depression in all but the negative growth required to confirm that) - what with the biflation that continues to infest our daily lives. Growth is only positive due to massive net migration. Per capita we are a slowly boiling frog. Debt is far too cheap and the government continue to pile it up. Eventually we will get to the point where the interest on the debt is so much no other services will be affordable. At this point we can kiss goodbye to the NHS (if it hasn't already been privatised), any welfare spending and you'll be working until 90 to get any pittance of a pension. Oh, and the currency will probably be junk by then due to over-zealous printing.

Yes you're right to mention moral hazard. Avoiding the crash that would have happened without intervention has meant that those individuals who should have lost all most of their wealth kept it at the expense of tax payers.

However, in my opinion the real scandal is house prices. The market should have been left to crash and restore the cost of owning a home much more affordable.
Instead the Baby Boomer generation and Buy To Let landlords were indirectly bailed out and it's those under 30 that have been shafted. It's not so bad in Hull but in some places the average house price is 10 times the average salary.

I think there will be a massive correction at some point but as long as the politicians can kick that particular can down the road for someone else to deal with then it's not their problem.

Happy days eh !
 
Does that mean we would have to have all our coffin dodgers back from Spain etc where they go to retire in the sun & would score zero points on any system !!

No, because they already live there. I'm not suggesting repatriation for hard-working migrants who have settled here and consider the UK their home. I'm suggesting an immigration policy which judges people on skills and qualifications, like an employer judges potential employees in an interview. Reducing immigration is necessary to prevent overpopulation. I don't know why people think wanting an immigration policy used by Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA is somehow akin to wanting large swathes of Britain's settled migrants instantly deported. The only ones I would like to see deported are the ones who don't work and have no intention of working.
 
I think we are all Labour because we all sing the Red Flag, Hull version of course, although not that often nowadays
 
Does that mean we would have to have all our coffin dodgers back from Spain etc where they go to retire in the sun & would score zero points on any system !!

Do you mean those people who have worked and paid taxes for years in this country and who use the money from the houses they have sold here to buy property in Spain and pump money into the economy without receiving social housing, housing benefits or any of the many things we dish out?
Most of them would be less of a burden and contribute more than many a young person, having already contributed more in any case.
 
Yes you're right to mention moral hazard. Avoiding the crash that would have happened without intervention has meant that those individuals who should have lost all most of their wealth kept it at the expense of tax payers.

However, in my opinion the real scandal is house prices. The market should have been left to crash and restore the cost of owning a home much more affordable.
Instead the Baby Boomer generation and Buy To Let landlords were indirectly bailed out and it's those under 30 that have been shafted. It's not so bad in Hull but in some places the average house price is 10 times the average salary.

I think there will be a massive correction at some point but as long as the politicians can kick that particular can down the road for someone else to deal with then it's not their problem.

Happy days eh !

Well I am 35 but, after renting in London for the last 5+ years, house prices are the main reason I've left. Social mobility appears to be more about the year you were born in than meritocracy.

As I said, I didn't vote but, based on their housing policies, the Greens social housing building and land value tax policies go much further than any of the other parties into correcting house prices.

Just a shame that they have some, IMO, mental policies that make it impossible to vote for them.

Tories want another RTB, increasing pressure on private market rents (not to mention HTB #23 to prop up house prices rather than letting the market discover the price).

I quite liked the labour announcement on non-doms but they will just spend the shirts off our backs.

Lib-Dems cooked their goose on tuition fees.

UKIP will control immigration but are the biggest NIMBYs of the lot (so the supply side is still a massive issue)

In short, the country is a shambles and whoever gets in will find a different way to fiddle while Rome burns.
 
Does that mean we would have to have all our coffin dodgers back from Spain etc where they go to retire in the sun & would score zero points on any system !!

Surely they'd score highly as they tend to bring money in and spend it locally, rather than taking money out and sending it home and creating rather than taking up employment?
 
Do you mean those people who have worked and paid taxes for years in this country and who use the money from the houses they have sold here to buy property in Spain and pump money into the economy without receiving social housing, housing benefits or any of the many things we dish out?
Most of them would be less of a burden and contribute more than many a young person, having already contributed more in any case.

Exactly. This was something I forgot to mention in my post. British ex-pats in Spain and France are mostly retirees who have assets and wealth from working throughout their lives and they pay their fair share of tax to the Spanish and French governments. The Spanish and French governments welcome their contributions considering Spain is having somewhat of a financial crisis and Hollande's socialist France likes spending other people's money.
 
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