As the SNP and Labour have both already stated that they will not do a formal coalition, the 12/1 on offer is a mug’s bet. Labour cannot give in to the SNP on Trident and I do not think that Miliband would last very long with Alex Salmond as his deputy – remember, Sturgeon is not standing for election so they only way she would be taking part is if they shoved her into the House Of Lords!
Black alerts in hospitals all over the country, yet more doctors and nurses than 5 years ago. Parents can't get their young children in the school of their choice. The roads/traffic is a flaming nightmare everywhere. We need, apparently, at least 200k houses to be built every year. Answers on a postcard. It's purely supply and demand not that I expect 'leftie' to understand. Uncontrolled immigration and will get worse with Hull moving here every year. Well done Blair.
It needs to be written off. There is no other sensible way out of the corner into which the Greeks and Germans have backed themselves and, by implication, the rest of us. Obama knows this,Christine Lagarde knows it, but the ECB, backed up by Wolfgang Schauble, is blind to the obvious. Austerity has crippled Greece, and she will be forced out of the Euro if she isn't given significant debt relief (of the sort afforded to Germany in 1945) and her banks recapitalised by her European partners. Trouble is of course, the Eurozone is no partnership, and the Germans are in no mood for mercy. It hasn't helped that Syriza have played a poor hand abominably.
Miliband has finally decided to switch to what should be Labour’s easiest goal – the National Health Service. What a shame that he let Shadow Health Secretary Tristram Hunt go on the Daily Politics to try and explain how it was going to be funded. The Mansion Tax is apparently going to raise £1.2bn for the NHS. When asked by Andrew Neil, he could not tell him at what rate the tax was going to be charged and which independent source had verified the £1.2bn that it was allegedly going to raise. More Labournomics dreamt up on the back of a *** packet. It stands to reason that to generate such a vast amount of revenue every year, there must be a lot more £2m Mansions in the country than I thought and the rate at which the Tax is going to be levied is going to be quite high. The accountants will already be looking at creating offshore property ownership vehicles for their wealthy clients, who can afford better accountants than governments and they can always find loopholes. There could be a lot of cats and dogs owning Mansions on 8th May if Miliband leads the biggest party.
Blame Labour for that one. They gave GPs a massive pay rise and allowed them to opt to work 9-5 Mon-Fri so nobody can get a GP appointment and they head to Accident & Emergency instead. When I was a child, you went to the local school and that was that. There were no Education League Tables. Now parents lie about their religion, lie about their address and are prepared to do miles of school run every morning to get in the perceived best schools. The Victorian road system was not intended to have all the traffic we have nowadays. We could start by knocking the school run on the head and make the kids walk to their local school – which would also help in the fight against childhood obesity. We need to start getting a big programme of building apprenticeships going so that we have a workforce to build houses and force the house builders to stop sitting on land and get building on it. As Hull is just down the road from me and The Economist probably had the right idea, I think that the immigrants are probably better than Hull because they mostly come here to work and contribute to the economy; however, we do need control back. Hull is a dead end northern city going nowhere, with the latest wheeze being a massively subsidised wind turbine factory that will provide a thousand jobs, most of which will probably go to immigrants. The much vaunted ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is really a ‘North Western Powerhouse’ and stops at Leeds.
The whole point of taxing property is that unlike other assets, it can't be moved offshore. And there's no shortage of £2m properties in central London. There are flats in knightsbridge worth double that, never mind mansions. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that those who have profited hugely from a badly mismanaged property market should make a contribution to the exchequer. The mansion tax is a winner.
'Blame Labour for that one' - Blair signed up to uncontrolled immigration. Nothing to do with 9-5 Doctors. There's to many who live here. Supply and demand. 'We need to start getting a big programme of building apprenticeships going so that we have a workforce to build houses and force the house builders to stop sitting on land and get building on it' To accommodate the expected 300,000 next year and every year. Mental.
so the right whingers are bemoaning the failure of the free market to provide basic human needs -housing, schools, and infra structure--these things need to be planned over a long term, not for short term profit , which has been attained at the expense of a skewed and unsustainable housing market --tories answer is to sell off the few remaining social units , thereby exacerbating the problem further --i work in the building industry , hands on -the apprenticeships that were the usual route were abandoned by the thatcherite zealots --the market will provide --, the bogus self employment and abuse of workers via the so called agency system has created a frankenstein of a problem -skill shortages at the moment , yet exploitative use of terms of employment --this is just one aspect of so called booming britain -its all a big lie , like all lies , it will be acknowledged eventuallly, but whilst a circus of vote business is going on , bigger lies are spun , but those of us who are at the coal face know the reality , and resent the patronising politicos spewing their bile. The rigged market , which is its real name, is incapable of providing for the benefit of all, it provides for a few, already bloated sector, and their apologists , but as ever we are asked to vote for one group who promise to run this charade better than another group--the only difference with a labour govt, is expectations are higher and by the same token disappointment is greater --but as history shows time after time, things can and do change very quickly and radically when the conditions are right and the old orders are swept into the dustbin of history..
I just love the fantastic blame culture in the UK, why cant everyone grow a pair and be a master of their own destiny? Zero hours contract - get a new job or take some training to get a new one Food bank - prioritise your spending cut out the cigs, booze iphone sky tv scratch cards etc etc
tesco -lady porter and her cronies made a hash cake of that enterprise,still no doubt they'll blame someone else..... any economist will tell you that the uk economy is built on sand, will crash any time the banks wobble, lending has continued for property but not for industry, housing market massively overcooked--just waiting for oven to fail.....
Robbie so explain why not everyone is on a zero hours? As I said for some blaming another is easier than looking in the mirror, growing a pair and striving to better themselves.
All you really need to know about zero hours contracts is that they are a manifestation of the powerful abusing the powerless.
Whilst you might be right about the merits of a Mansion Tax, the simple fact of the matter was that the Labour Party’s man could not tell anybody what rate it was going to be levied at and where his party were sourcing their figure of £1.2bn revenue. I will correct what I wrote yesterday – Labour’s man on the Daily Politics was Shadow Health Minister Jamie Reed, not Shadow Health Secretary Tristram Hunt. You may not be able to move a Mansion offshore, but I expect that it is perfectly possible to create some sort of offshore ownership vehicle to which a Labour government would have trouble sending a tax demand and chasing the unpaid tax. People owning £2m Mansions can afford better accountants than the government.
Redprintt, I would suggest that you go back and look at the legislation that Blair and Brown introduced in the House Of Commons (not European legislation) between 1997 and 2010. You will find that when Labour gave GPs a salary higher than MPs they also allowed GPs to opt out of providing out of hours cover in their new contract in 2004. Blair and Brown clearly thought that in the Labour Utopia nobody would ever get ill outside of daylight hours so GPs could work fewer hours for more money than MPs.
According to Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Leslie, speaking on the BBC Daily Politics: Economic Debate, Labour have based the £1.2bn revenue from the Mansion Tax on Danny Alexander’s projections done by the HMRC. That is the Liberal Democrat Treasury Minister, so now everyone knows why Labour cannot give any details – the *** packet with the numbers on is in somebody else’s pocket!
