Off Topic The General Election Countdown and Aftermath

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rudebwoy said:
Some spin going there -err no mentioning of tax avoidance /evasions -that even hmrc admit is 70 billion a year minimum........
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In my post, everything below the emboldened headline is historical fact, researched from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and measuringworth.com, as I promised Ron a history lesson.

‘70 billion’ is small potatoes. Just how many hundreds of billions did Gordon Brown have to throw at our failed banking system because Labour (and previously the Tories) had failed to introduce proper regulation because they were financing most of the public sector from the high tax revenues that the banks were generating from their dodgy trading?

If Miliband is going to crack down on the likes of Google and Starbucks doing convenient tax arrangements with HMRC, I am sure that most would not object but presumably he has alternate jobs lined up for the people working for Google if they just decide to up sticks and move to Ireland. All Google are doing is running a call centre to sell advertising – they can do that from Dublin.

If Miliband wants to crack down on the small scale tax avoidance that people like him and me do, well I will just stop working altogether and start claiming benefits once I have spent what money I have in the bank and become eligible. All these years that I have been paying some taxes and have been eligible for nothing makes me really resent the fact that when Gordon Brown was maxing out the national credit card, I was being prudent and saving. I come from a ‘working class’ background but the three Labour governments in my lifetime illustrate perfectly why I would never vote Labour.

A fundamental fact that is being ignored by all these politicians is that the private sector pays more than the public sector; hence the best accountants (i.e. the ones that can find and exploit the tax loopholes) do not work for the government or HMRC. Tax evasion is illegal so lock them up and recover the tax; tax avoidance is not illegal – otherwise the Miliband brothers, me and a few others would be doing stir.

When the IFS looked at Labour’s Manifesto commitments they said that they had serious misgivings about how they were going to generate the revenues that they were committing to spend. The Mansion Tax is worth £1.2bn but that figure comes from Danny Alexander, who had the HMRC calculate it for the Liberal Democrats (which was a misuse of government office); and most of Labour’s other headline tax measures come to hundreds of millions not billions. The tax avoidance/evasion card was overplayed by all parties because history tells us they never deliver. So, as usual with Labour, the numbers do not add up.
 
You're being very selective there QM. Think you'll find the IFS have been equally skeptical of all the party's finance plans, not just Labour's.
 
Archers Road said:
You're being very selective there QM. Think you'll find the IFS have been equally skeptical of all the party's finance plans, not just Labour's.
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That is true, but I was replying to a post that was a reply to my original post about Labour. The IFS did not even bother to look at the Green Party’s numbers because they were so laughable and they could not be bothered with UKIP’s either, although they claim to have had them independently verified (probably by Mrs Farage!).


Remember: vote early and vote often.

For more than forty days and forty nights, we have been subjected to undeliverable commitments and unanswered questions by the political classes. It is little surprise that the young people of the country are so disconnected from and apathetic to the democratic process. If the election were on Facebook, perhaps they would be more interested in getting involved even if they did not have a clue what they were going to get.

The students have ditched the Liberal Democrats because they believe that they were betrayed on tuition fees and have instead switched to the Green Party, whose economically inept manifesto has no chance of having any influence on the next parliament.

This has been the dullest election campaign I can recall, with the major parties stage managing their electioneering so that only the invited faithful were attending any events. No real interrogation of the candidates and their policies. With the main parties stuffed with career politicians and the lack of any dynamic fervour, the political future looks very bleak.
 
I agree the current political landscape looks bleak. Barren even. But I have sallied forth to exercise my right and duty.

I felt I owed it to The Levellers, The Chartists and the Tolpuddle Martyrs; to Wat Tyler, Oliver Cromwell, Ben Tillett and Tom Mann, to Emily Davison and The Pankhursts; to Wordsworth, Byron, the Shelleys, Keats and Coleridge. Not forgetting William Blake, history's greatest Englishman.

None of them would have been cynical about democracy, not failed to value the right of the common man or woman to cast their vote. Shame there isn't, to my knowledge anyway, a candidate standing anywhere in the British Isles fit to be mentioned in the same breath as any of the above, but there you go. Them's the breaks.
 
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Well i have voted for only the second time in my life, thought i best chuck one in then at least i have a right to moan when vote does nothing and Cameron gets back in !
 
Having watched and listened to coverage for the last six weeks it has taken France24 to explain outcomes; surprisingly from a Scottish Sun journalist who stated that the SNP cannot 'lose' due to Fixed Term Parliament Act.
 
I went in the local BetFred to look up a couple of ante post prices and they had a special election bet being advertised. They were offering odds on who would win the local Parliamentary constituency, as follows:

1/100 Labour (the incumbent; money for old rope if I had a grand in cash on me to win a tenner)
16/1 UKIP (have had leaflets from their guy but those odds are skinny for a first timer; the local MEP is UKIP)
50/1 Liberal Democrats (have not heard from her; they were second last time but way behind)
66/1 Conservatives (have heard from her but she has no chance here in loony-left territory)
(total book 108%)
 
QuarterMoonII said:
Q: Why has money been fleeing the UK for over a year?
A: Because for most of that time Labour was ahead in the polls.

Apparently the thought is in the City that when Labour’s Manifesto tax rises come up well short of their spending plans, they are going to increase the tax on share dividends (because only the rich have shares) and they will raise Corporation Tax to 30%. Those two measures will be catastrophic for business, the economy and tax revenues (i.e. public spending).

Economic Incompetence: A Historical Guide From Labour In Government

The first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald was a minority government supported by the Liberals and lasted from January until October 1924 and there are no deficit statistics available for that period as they are annualised. That government collapsed because the Liberals would not support much of MacDonald's largely socialist agenda.

The second Labour government, another MacDonald minority supported by the Liberals lasted from May 1929 to August 1931, during which the deficit fell from 7.23 billion (160% of GDP) to 7.15 billion (171% of GDP).

After WWII, the third Labour government under Clement Atlee governed from July 1945 to October 1951. At the end of WWII the deficit was 20.63 billion (215% of GDP). The British government entered into the Marshall Plan in 1948-51, ostensibly a 3.3 billion dollar loan from the USA that took until 2006 to pay off. They also received 4.6 billion dollars in unconnected loans. When Labour left office, the deficit had statistically risen to 25.38 billion (175% of GDP) despite high employment because of high public spending (e.g. the founding of the NHS).

The fourth Labour government from October 1964 to June 1970 under Harold Wilson saw a rise in the deficit from 30.67 billion (91% of GDP) to 34.84 billion (64% of GDP) through the swinging sixties, a period of high employment (i.e. GDP rose).

The fifth Labour government from February 1974 to May 1979 saw Wilson and latterly James Callaghan increase the deficit from 42.21 billion (47.8% of GDP) to 90.4 billion (43.6% of GDP) through the strife of the Winter of Discontent but with the help of a 5.3 billion dollar loan from the US Treasury and a 3.9 billion dollar bailout from the I.M.F. in 1976 after runaway inflation had destroyed the pound/dollar exchange rate.

The sixth Labour government from May 1997 to May 2010 saw Tony Blair and latterly Gordon Brown increase the deficit from 368.47 billion (41.9% of GDP) to 825.93 billion (53% of GDP) as GDP fell and Brown bailed out the banks, whilst also spending 220 billion off the balance sheet using the Private Finance Initiative (current value 300 billion).

(Monetary values are nominal not adjusted real)
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The Blair government aside, most of these governments were formed after economic turmoil in this country. So not really a balanced view. Even Blair managed to drag this country out of years of Tory miss rule, and anyway, he was the best Tory prime minister we never had.
 
SNP bully boys intimidating voters. Also gonna trail the vote trucks.

Dearie dearie me! Shame on them. How very undemocratic.
 
Operation scallop - "apparently" they fear this election will be rigged. Which aligns to their conspiracy theory about how they lost the referendum. One wonders whether they have the mental stability to vote on their own.
 
Based on previous behaviour of the followers of said party heres hoping police scotlands concerns arent justified!
 
Why the **** don't we just give them Scotland? who gives a ****? i bet if they had a referendum of rest of uk if they wanted to keep Scotland the answer would be NO
 
Smokey - heres the thing. If you truly wanted miliband in power youd vote labour throughout Scotland. You would also make miliband more powerful . By voting snp its weakening labour so makes no sense. But then all the snp bluster came from a lady NOT STANDING therefore powerless in westminster. If its such a great party where has the leader in westminster been after all he would have a bigger part in any negotiation than ms jimmy krankie!
 
gazboy said:
Smokey - heres the thing. If you truly wanted miliband in power youd vote labour throughout Scotland. You would also make miliband more powerful . By voting snp its weakening labour so makes no sense. But then all the snp bluster came from a lady NOT STANDING therefore powerless in westminster. If its such a great party where has the leader in westminster been after all he would have a bigger part in any negotiation than ms jimmy krankie!
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Thats what bugs me all this talk about SNP but they have no real say, i don't get why they are involved at all
 
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