Its quite easy, the rich get richer under a Tory government and the poor get poorer. Always been the case and always will be.
This is only half true. The rich have always gotten richer, whether under Tories or Labour, however neither under the 18 year Tory government or the 5 year Coalition have the poor been left poorer. Figures indicate that the poor will be slightly better off in 2015 than they were in 2010 and that's before you take into account the cyclical effect of the global financial crisis that was still at its peak when the Coalition came to power.
So are you saying that there was a global financial crisis rather than a national financial crisis?
Yes, that is correct.
Would you then say that therefore the last government was not responsible for the financial crisis?
Yes I would agree with that statement.
They were however responsible for running a damaging tax and spend policy which weakened the UK's financial stability, meaning that the effects of the global financial crisis on the UK economy were much worse than they would have otherwise been and directly leading to the austerity policy.
POORER?? They've got an asset worth 2 MILLION QUID, and you're calling them poorer? OK, you're either just trolling, or you've completely lost your grip on reality
I meant cash-poor. For some people, money isn't the most important thing in the world even if it clearly is to you. Ok, yeah, if they're forced to sell due to the mansion tax, then they will be 2 million richer but they will have to move. Also some of these people will be in their 60s and 70s or older - some might not even live long enough to spend that money in a way that's meaningful for them. Just because you can't empathise with these people because you and Muttley seem to lack basic social skills or can't seem to understand anyone living in a situation that doesn't exactly mirror yours but this potential tax is causing people stuck in this situation a lot of unnecessary worry and stress. They would rather lead more humble lives and keep the home they love than have millions but lose the home they love. Especially for older people uprooting themselves can be a stressful time.
No need for the personal stuff Fiiish as you have no idea of peoples own circumstances and experience that influence their views.
The fact is some posters might struggle to have the same level of empathy as you do for a very, very small percentage of the population who might be in the circumstances you describe. Who still have the wherewithal to sell their asset, buy another £1m+ property and trouser a lifetime of earnings of the average person in the meantime btw.
It may be upsetting or inconvenient for the minority of the minority that this tax will effect but perhaps some of us just place greater priority on the needs of the million people who are using food banks in what is supposed to be 21st century Britain or the millions of kids who are currently being brought up in poverty?
This from The Poverty Site report 2010. More hypocrisy The (Labour) government's short term target was to reduce the number of children in low-income households by a quarter by 2004/05 compared with 1998/99. This implied a maximum of 3.3 million children living in low-income households by 2004/05. Given that the actual number in 2008/09 was 3.9 million, the government is - four years later - still 0.6 million above its target for 2004/05.
Child Poverty Action Trust Under current government policies, child poverty is projected to rise from 2012/13 with an expected 600,000 more children living in poverty by 2015/16. This upward trend is expected to continue with 4.7 million children projected to be living in poverty by 2020. So, if it got worse under Labour, it's getting much, much worse under the coalition.
I'd stick to facts over predictions but...
..you are agreeing that both administrations have been utterly useless then?
Because a casual reader of this thread would be amazed that posters from both sides think their chosen party are saviours and the best ever with all the (only) perfect solutions and the other lot are evil clueless demons.
For every outrageous claim, a scratch around finds a counter claim.
All this outrage over zero hours masks the fact that even if you take the 600,000 zero hours contracts out of the equation, (and the proportion of that number who are on such contracts against their will make it a smaller number), the number of people out of work is still what 2 million less than when Labour departed.
Personally I'm finding myself liking the Lib Dem poster
It is the vulnerable that get attacked I'm afraid, in this unfair world.
The smallest kid at school, rather than the biggest kid. The woman walking down the street, who's body language says "victim". The house that isn't alarmed. The car that isn't alarmed.
If you make yourself vulnerable, you are more likely to be attacked. It is unfortunately a fact, we do not live in an ideal world.
I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable. You cannot, in all honesty, be suggesting that the "body language" of a woman makes them "more likely to be attacked". Maybe you posted this by mistake. If so, and if you delete it, I will certainly delete this post. But if you genuinely and deliberately posted that, it's an outrageous suggestion. It's saying "if a woman gets attacked, she might have been culpable, depending on what her body language was". And, by extension, "her attacker's guilt is lessened by the way she was acting before it happened".
I really hope you posted it by mistake and it's not what you really meant to imply.
I've not read this thread for a couple of days. Anyway, Chizz it took me all of 10 seconds to prove that what I said is correct.
I hadn't seen that you had posted again. I find any suggestion that a woman might fall prey to an attacker due to her own actions utterly abhorrent. Your original post expounded a view that a woman could be considered culpable when she's attacked. It's an awful suggestion and conjures up the weakest defence of those accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Had you said "man" or "person" instead of "woman", your original intention (which I now understand is different from the inference easily applicable to it) would have been clearer. But, as you chose to use the word "woman", it's easy to infer that you meant "women are sometimes to blame when they're attacked". Which, I am sure you'll agree, is not right.
Chizz, you should take up politics. You twisted what I said, better than anything I've heard in the last few weeks.
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I said, even though I provided a link to substantiate.
People's body language, does effect their chance of becoming a victim.
Just because you are ignorant of the fact. It doesn't make it untrue.
Perhaps, you should improve your lack of knowledge, before casting aspersions.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but ask in future, that you know what you are talking about, before you become outraged and say I said things which I clearly did not.
Its quite easy, the rich get richer under a Tory government and the poor get poorer. Always been the case and always will be.
This is only half true. The rich have always gotten richer, whether under Tories or Labour, however neither under the 18 year Tory government or the 5 year Coalition have the poor been left poorer. Figures indicate that the poor will be slightly better off in 2015 than they were in 2010 and that's before you take into account the cyclical effect of the global financial crisis that was still at its peak when the Coalition came to power.
So are you saying that there was a global financial crisis rather than a national financial crisis?
Yes, that is correct.
Would you then say that therefore the last government was not responsible for the financial crisis?
Totally blameless. They were just brilliant.
(Just dont read this blog from that old right winger, Sean Thomas in the Telegraph ''Labour 1997 - 2010 was the Worst Government Ever.'')
It is the vulnerable that get attacked I'm afraid, in this unfair world.
The smallest kid at school, rather than the biggest kid. The woman walking down the street, who's body language says "victim". The house that isn't alarmed. The car that isn't alarmed.
If you make yourself vulnerable, you are more likely to be attacked. It is unfortunately a fact, we do not live in an ideal world.
I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable. You cannot, in all honesty, be suggesting that the "body language" of a woman makes them "more likely to be attacked". Maybe you posted this by mistake. If so, and if you delete it, I will certainly delete this post. But if you genuinely and deliberately posted that, it's an outrageous suggestion. It's saying "if a woman gets attacked, she might have been culpable, depending on what her body language was". And, by extension, "her attacker's guilt is lessened by the way she was acting before it happened".
I really hope you posted it by mistake and it's not what you really meant to imply.
I've not read this thread for a couple of days. Anyway, Chizz it took me all of 10 seconds to prove that what I said is correct.
I hadn't seen that you had posted again. I find any suggestion that a woman might fall prey to an attacker due to her own actions utterly abhorrent. Your original post expounded a view that a woman could be considered culpable when she's attacked. It's an awful suggestion and conjures up the weakest defence of those accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Had you said "man" or "person" instead of "woman", your original intention (which I now understand is different from the inference easily applicable to it) would have been clearer. But, as you chose to use the word "woman", it's easy to infer that you meant "women are sometimes to blame when they're attacked". Which, I am sure you'll agree, is not right.
Chizz, you should take up politics. You twisted what I said, better than anything I've heard in the last few weeks.
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I said, even though I provided a link to substantiate.
People's body language, does effect their chance of becoming a victim.
Just because you are ignorant of the fact. It doesn't make it untrue.
Perhaps, you should improve your lack of knowledge, before casting aspersions.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but ask in future, that you know what you are talking about, before you become outraged and say I said things which I clearly did not.
It is the vulnerable that get attacked I'm afraid, in this unfair world.
The smallest kid at school, rather than the biggest kid. The woman walking down the street, who's body language says "victim". The house that isn't alarmed. The car that isn't alarmed.
If you make yourself vulnerable, you are more likely to be attacked. It is unfortunately a fact, we do not live in an ideal world.
I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable. You cannot, in all honesty, be suggesting that the "body language" of a woman makes them "more likely to be attacked". Maybe you posted this by mistake. If so, and if you delete it, I will certainly delete this post. But if you genuinely and deliberately posted that, it's an outrageous suggestion. It's saying "if a woman gets attacked, she might have been culpable, depending on what her body language was". And, by extension, "her attacker's guilt is lessened by the way she was acting before it happened".
I really hope you posted it by mistake and it's not what you really meant to imply.
I've not read this thread for a couple of days. Anyway, Chizz it took me all of 10 seconds to prove that what I said is correct.
I hadn't seen that you had posted again. I find any suggestion that a woman might fall prey to an attacker due to her own actions utterly abhorrent. Your original post expounded a view that a woman could be considered culpable when she's attacked. It's an awful suggestion and conjures up the weakest defence of those accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Had you said "man" or "person" instead of "woman", your original intention (which I now understand is different from the inference easily applicable to it) would have been clearer. But, as you chose to use the word "woman", it's easy to infer that you meant "women are sometimes to blame when they're attacked". Which, I am sure you'll agree, is not right.
Chizz, you should take up politics. You twisted what I said, better than anything I've heard in the last few weeks.
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I said, even though I provided a link to substantiate.
People's body language, does effect their chance of becoming a victim.
Just because you are ignorant of the fact. It doesn't make it untrue.
Perhaps, you should improve your lack of knowledge, before casting aspersions.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but ask in future, that you know what you are talking about, before you become outraged and say I said things which I clearly did not.
Accepted
That's pathetic, unless you are trying to be funny.
I'm all for fairness in society, but it doesn't mean I have to support unfairness in order to achieve it. If your principle is "fairness" and many poster claim that is why they will support Milliband because he "talks" about fairness, at what stage is it OK to be unfair to those who are better off in order to be "fair" to those not so well off.
You are either fair to all or not fair to all. Being selective on who you are fair to is nothing to be proud of or aspire to in my book. It means you are discriminatory and you are justifying discrimination where it would be bigotry in any other situation.
The mansion tax is unfair and justified on a stereotypical presumption that everyone who lives in a valuable property is able to pay an arbitrary poll tax. It should be no more acceptable to stereotype on this basis than it would be to stereotype a muslim as a potential terrorist.
A basic rate tax payer on £25k p.a has take home pay of £1,674 a month, so a 20% tax on gross pay compared to the 26% tax rate giving take home pay of £2,785 for the person earning £45k. The mansion tax increases the tax by 6% of gross pay and a marginal rate on pay above the higher rate threshold I haven't tried to work out but must be near to 50%.
Why should it be assumed that the higher rate tax payer is able to absorb an overnight 6% increase in tax any more than could someone who is a basic rate taxpayer. On no grounds is it a fair tax, it appeals to the basic instincts of envy encouraged by the left.
Let's take the politics out of it. How about a fairer system - one where we are not manipulated by press barons and rich conglomerates into thinking it is actually good to look after the rich at the expense of the poor. I have no problem with rich people, I strive to be richer and always will, but it bothers me when services to disabled people are cut, it bothers me when stupidly rich people avoid paying their taxes, it bothers me that food banks are on the increase, it bothers me that people don't care about this.
Now let's put politics back in it. Is Labour the answer. Hell no - in Millibands words. They are part of the establishment system that sh*ts on 'unimportant' people too. It is just they are closer to the answer than the tories. Faced with the choice I will go with that, especially as they have a leader for the first time in a long time, who actually does believe in justice. Good luck to him I say being part of an establishment party, but in the absence of any other choices he'll get my vote.
After I have donated to the poor millionaires some on here are so bothered about of course. My eyes have been opened to their suffering.
I'm all for fairness in society, but it doesn't mean I have to support unfairness in order to achieve it. If your principle is "fairness" and many poster claim that is why they will support Milliband because he "talks" about fairness, at what stage is it OK to be unfair to those who are better off in order to be "fair" to those not so well off.
You are either fair to all or not fair to all. Being selective on who you are fair to is nothing to be proud of or aspire to in my book. It means you are discriminatory and you are justifying discrimination where it would be bigotry in any other situation.
The mansion tax is unfair and justified on a stereotypical presumption that everyone who lives in a valuable property is able to pay an arbitrary poll tax. It should be no more acceptable to stereotype on this basis than it would be to stereotype a muslim as a potential terrorist.
A basic rate tax payer on £25k p.a has take home pay of £1,674 a month, so a 20% tax on gross pay compared to the 26% tax rate giving take home pay of £2,785 for the person earning £45k. The mansion tax increases the tax by 6% of gross pay and a marginal rate on pay above the higher rate threshold I haven't tried to work out but must be near to 50%.
Why should it be assumed that the higher rate tax payer is able to absorb an overnight 6% increase in tax any more than could someone who is a basic rate taxpayer. On no grounds is it a fair tax, it appeals to the basic instincts of envy encouraged by the left.
For these reasons, it's being proposed that those people on lower income can defer the tax until a later date, eg when they sell the property.
Let's take the hypocrisy out of politics . Let's have some honest statements like Labour saying we want a fairer society and having more than someone else is unfair.
Let's stop pretending that poverty is the fault of the rich. Let's stop pretending that poverty is able to be eliminated or is worsening when it is defined by reference to average pay that is always increasing. Poverty through illness and disability and lack of work is one thing and few would object to giving to provide support.
Poverty through taking drugs and having children on benefits without a father to provide any financial support is another. Many see it as unfair having to finance a lifestyle choice and would prefer it is discouraged rather than encouraging the choice through taxpayer subsidies which would be better applied elsewhere.
Milliband a leader who believes in justice and fairness and paying your fair share who moved his property about to avoid paying tax. Diane Abbott a passionate socialist who sends her children to fee paying schools. Yes vote Labour the party that will end the privileges of the elite to help the poor (but the leaders will participate in the privledges in the meantime).
Vote for Labour who will tax the rich yet operated a lower tax regime than the current. Government who are supposed to be the ones favouring the rich. Talk is cheap, ask Nick Clegg about tuition fees.
Chizz you are wrong. The mansion tax is not able to be rolled up and paid on sale unless you are a basic rate tax payer. It is then additional inheritance tax paid perhaps twenty years too late for it to help the NHS today, the current justification for it.
Having sympathy for those liable for the mansion tax is not required, acknowledging unfairness is invited as an option to being a hypocrite if you really believe in fairness. Otherwise admit to it being OK to be prejudiced as long as it is not yet on the official list of banned prejudices.
The solution to poverty is jobs and economic growth not taxation fair or unfair. Encouraging business is to encourage jobs and economic growth. I am dismayed by the anti business sentiment as if any positive help for business is intended to be at the expense of the poor or to make the rich better off.
Well said Dippenhall. There are large parts of Labour's pledges that are deeply unfair, it is just the burden of that unfairness falls heavily on those demonised by Labour and their allies in the media.
Let's take the hypocrisy out of politics . Let's have some honest statements like Labour saying we want a fairer society and having more than someone else is unfair.
Let's stop pretending that poverty is the fault of the rich. Let's stop pretending that poverty is able to be eliminated or is worsening when it is defined by reference to average pay that is always increasing. Poverty through illness and disability and lack of work is one thing and few would object to giving to provide support.
Poverty through taking drugs and having children on benefits without a father to provide any financial support is another. Many see it as unfair having to finance a lifestyle choice and would prefer it is discouraged rather than encouraging the choice through taxpayer subsidies which would be better applied elsewhere.
Milliband a leader who believes in justice and fairness and paying your fair share who moved his property about to avoid paying tax. Diane Abbott a passionate socialist who sends her children to fee paying schools. Yes vote Labour the party that will end the privileges of the elite to help the poor (but the leaders will participate in the privledges in the meantime).
Vote for Labour who will tax the rich yet operated a lower tax regime than the current. Government who are supposed to be the ones favouring the rich. Talk is cheap, ask Nick Clegg about tuition fees.
Chizz you are wrong. The mansion tax is not able to be rolled up and paid on sale unless you are a basic rate tax payer. It is then additional inheritance tax paid perhaps twenty years too late for it to help the NHS today, the current justification for it.
Having sympathy for those liable for the mansion tax is not required, acknowledging unfairness is invited as an option to being a hypocrite if you really believe in fairness. Otherwise admit to it being OK to be prejudiced as long as it is not yet on the official list of banned prejudices.
The solution to poverty is jobs and economic growth not taxation fair or unfair. Encouraging business is to encourage jobs and economic growth. I am dismayed by the anti business sentiment as if any positive help for business is intended to be at the expense of the poor or to make the rich better off.
Preach.
And saying labour had nothing to do with the economic problems in this country is like going outside in the winter without a jumper on, getting pneumonia and saying it was the cold weather's fault.
POORER?? They've got an asset worth 2 MILLION QUID, and you're calling them poorer? OK, you're either just trolling, or you've completely lost your grip on reality
I meant cash-poor. For some people, money isn't the most important thing in the world even if it clearly is to you. Ok, yeah, if they're forced to sell due to the mansion tax, then they will be 2 million richer but they will have to move. Also some of these people will be in their 60s and 70s or older - some might not even live long enough to spend that money in a way that's meaningful for them. Just because you can't empathise with these people because you and Muttley seem to lack basic social skills or can't seem to understand anyone living in a situation that doesn't exactly mirror yours but this potential tax is causing people stuck in this situation a lot of unnecessary worry and stress. They would rather lead more humble lives and keep the home they love than have millions but lose the home they love. Especially for older people uprooting themselves can be a stressful time.
No need for the personal stuff Fiiish as you have no idea of peoples own circumstances and experience that influence their views.
The fact is some posters might struggle to have the same level of empathy as you do for a very, very small percentage of the population who might be in the circumstances you describe. Who still have the wherewithal to sell their asset, buy another £1m+ property and trouser a lifetime of earnings of the average person in the meantime btw.
It may be upsetting or inconvenient for the minority of the minority that this tax will effect but perhaps some of us just place greater priority on the needs of the million people who are using food banks in what is supposed to be 21st century Britain or the millions of kids who are currently being brought up in poverty?
This from The Poverty Site report 2010. More hypocrisy The (Labour) government's short term target was to reduce the number of children in low-income households by a quarter by 2004/05 compared with 1998/99. This implied a maximum of 3.3 million children living in low-income households by 2004/05. Given that the actual number in 2008/09 was 3.9 million, the government is - four years later - still 0.6 million above its target for 2004/05.
Child Poverty Action Trust Under current government policies, child poverty is projected to rise from 2012/13 with an expected 600,000 more children living in poverty by 2015/16. This upward trend is expected to continue with 4.7 million children projected to be living in poverty by 2020. So, if it got worse under Labour, it's getting much, much worse under the coalition.
That is not as clear cut as it seems nor as clear cut as that group (whose whole raison d'etre relies upon there actually being some child poverty) would like to portray. As I have explained earlier the "poverty line" is movable: - it is artificial - it is 60% of the national median household income. It is an average. As it goes up by, for example, the Govt. introducing higher personal tax bands and people having wage increases, it is entirely possible that more people will fall into the "poverty" trap. But as individuals they will still (in the main) actually be better off and might not actually be "living in poverty".
It is the vulnerable that get attacked I'm afraid, in this unfair world.
The smallest kid at school, rather than the biggest kid. The woman walking down the street, who's body language says "victim". The house that isn't alarmed. The car that isn't alarmed.
If you make yourself vulnerable, you are more likely to be attacked. It is unfortunately a fact, we do not live in an ideal world.
I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable. You cannot, in all honesty, be suggesting that the "body language" of a woman makes them "more likely to be attacked". Maybe you posted this by mistake. If so, and if you delete it, I will certainly delete this post. But if you genuinely and deliberately posted that, it's an outrageous suggestion. It's saying "if a woman gets attacked, she might have been culpable, depending on what her body language was". And, by extension, "her attacker's guilt is lessened by the way she was acting before it happened".
I really hope you posted it by mistake and it's not what you really meant to imply.
I've not read this thread for a couple of days. Anyway, Chizz it took me all of 10 seconds to prove that what I said is correct.
I hadn't seen that you had posted again. I find any suggestion that a woman might fall prey to an attacker due to her own actions utterly abhorrent. Your original post expounded a view that a woman could be considered culpable when she's attacked. It's an awful suggestion and conjures up the weakest defence of those accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Had you said "man" or "person" instead of "woman", your original intention (which I now understand is different from the inference easily applicable to it) would have been clearer. But, as you chose to use the word "woman", it's easy to infer that you meant "women are sometimes to blame when they're attacked". Which, I am sure you'll agree, is not right.
Chizz, you should take up politics. You twisted what I said, better than anything I've heard in the last few weeks.
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I said, even though I provided a link to substantiate.
People's body language, does effect their chance of becoming a victim.
Just because you are ignorant of the fact. It doesn't make it untrue.
Perhaps, you should improve your lack of knowledge, before casting aspersions.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but ask in future, that you know what you are talking about, before you become outraged and say I said things which I clearly did not.
Accepted
That's pathetic, unless you are trying to be funny.
He's the biggest WUM on here and thats saying something.
I absolutely agree that labour were partly if not entirely responsible for the recession, but I think they've learned from it, sometimes failure is the best route to success.
I am voting labour not because I completely agree with everything they say, but because I've seen too much suffering under the Tories and there is more devastating cuts to come, I don't think our normal people and services would survive another 5 years.
The failing NHS due to overstretched staff and equipment has already cost lives in my opinion and now we have to sit back and watch someone we love die because of it. So many others in that situation too it's beyond sad.
Food banks, or the increasing use of them, may not be a big issue for most on here and I hope none of you ever have to use one but the increase in "working" families having to use them goes to show how bad things have got, why should someone who works hard for their wages still not have enough left to feed his/her family?
The benefit cap although a good idea in principle, has pushed innocent children into severe poverty. Not all people are claiming benefits because they don't want to work, many have been pushed into that situation due to redundancy, relationship breakdown or ill health. The cap is £500 per week per family but includes all benefits including housing it is fine for a family of 3 or 4 living in rural England but devastating for families of 5 or 6+ living in a big town. The cap I agree with but it should be variable to at least protect the kids that are starving as a result of it.
The bedroom tax again great idea in principle but has flaws. People have acknowledged that they are in too big a property and are being penalised but everyone in the same boat at the same time is not solving the problem, the penalties should only be applied when someone is offered a smaller suitable property and turns it down, otherwise they are being penalised for something that is out of their control.
Cameron and Osborne have made so many mistakes but won't acknowledge them, they won't change them and they want to make things worse. If voting labour is a step towards getting Conservatives out then that's what I'm going to do.
The solution to poverty is jobs and economic growth not taxation fair or unfair. Encouraging business is to encourage jobs and economic growth. I am dismayed by the anti business sentiment as if any positive help for business is intended to be at the expense of the poor or to make the rich better off.
The rest of your post is playing the man not the ball (which is happening too much on both sides in this thread).
But this bit seems to suggest that the government can "encourage jobs and economic growth" without changing taxation or spending tax revenues in a different way to how it is currently done.
How exactly do you propose a taxation- and budget-neutral method of "encouraging business" and "encouraging jobs and economic growth"?
Oh come on, the average house price in London is "only" £600k, that is from reports released yesterday. Way down on what the proposed mansion tax is looking to hit. I don't agree with all the points of it but it's hardly likely to affect that many of us and if it does they can more than likely afford it.
'Cash-rich but asset-poor' i.e. someone on a low income who purchased the house at a more modest price but now owns a house worth millions because of property speculators. It's more common that you're led to believe and Ed Miliband has refused to comment on whether people in such a situation would be protected by his proposed tax.
Also nearly every expert who has offered an opinion of this has said this tax will be expensive to administer, will take years to see any benefit (as all houses will need to be independently assessed and then property owners will appeal), and will raise nowhere near the kind of money that is being stated. There are far better ways of taxing rich people but Ed Miliband is ideologically anchored to this awful policy.
*sigh* That's asset-rich but cash-poor. And to be honest, if you are in that situation, you have plenty of options to downsize or move to a nearby cheaper area. The advantage of a mansion tax is that you can't physically move the damn things off-shore to avoid the tax, unlike various other classes of assets. As for the valuations, a quick trawl through the land registry database would be a reasonable starting point, and to be honest we are WELL overdue a council tax banding revaluation anyway, so they may as well kill two birds with one stone.
The Labour manifesto makes it clear that the actual criterion will be "asset rich" but "income poor". Cash, savings, whatever you like to call it doesn't count. Hence the £42,000 annual earnings cut-off point. Oddly, they seem to make no attempt to bring individuals' savings into the calculation. You'd think they would like some more of those too. Why stop at house value? Why not take a slice of peoples' ISAs, stamp collections, diamonds, Kruger Rands, wine cellars, high value cars too? Would that not be "fair"?
In any event, valuations will I anticipate be the huge issue. We know council tax bands do not help here; we know Land Registry values may very well be out of date; we know people have been digging holes under their houses to add cellars; spending large on kitchen refurbs, etc, etc. So, it seems to me that it is almost certain, (because we've seen it happen with the ambulance chasers and PPI claims firms) that a whole army of valuation appeals firms will spring out of nowhere to assist those owners who have had their property valued at, say, £2,050,000 to demonstrate that they paid over the odds a little bit and the actual worth now, with a small amount of wear and tear and renovation needed is in reality only £1,999,500.
It is likely to be chaotic and will bring in nothing like the money promised once bureaucracy has had its slice.
BTW, a Govt. (of any persuasion) would like nothing more than to get people to downsize to a £1mn house. An extra £153,750.00 stamp duty brought in on the purchase of the £2mn house plus £43,750 on the £1mn house. Lovely stuff!
I am voting labour not because I completely agree with everything they say, but because I've seen too much suffering under the Tories and there is more devastating cuts to come, I don't think our normal people and services would survive another 5 years.
I get what you're saying but the fact is every country in the same situation as us has had to scale back their public services. The haircut that the UK's public services have received are pretty light compared to a lot of the countries on the continent. The truth is that public services are unlikely to be in any better shape if Labour had won another 5 years after 2010. The Tories came to power just as the economic crisis was coming to its peak. Even Labour said when they left office that there was no money left.
Interesting. I thought Brighton's MP was Green though - or is the ground outside the constituency?
Half of Brighton is Tory, the other half is Green and the neighbouring constituency Lewes is LibDem. I think the Amex straddles the Tory/LibDem lines but lies mostly within Tory Brighton. It could be considered a Coalition stadium ;-)
Well said Dippenhall. There are large parts of Labour's pledges that are deeply unfair, it is just the burden of that unfairness falls heavily on those demonised by Labour and their allies in the media.
In your opinion. But in my opinion, and many others on here, that is simply not true.
Well said Dippenhall. There are large parts of Labour's pledges that are deeply unfair, it is just the burden of that unfairness falls heavily on those demonised by Labour and their allies in the media.
In your opinion. But in my opinion, and many others on here, that is simply not true.
I don't condone basing our country's economic policy on ideology over what is backed up by facts and expert analysis. But I suppose some people still believe that the world was made in 7 days for ideological reasons so I am aware that other opinions are out there.
Well said Dippenhall. There are large parts of Labour's pledges that are deeply unfair, it is just the burden of that unfairness falls heavily on those demonised by Labour and their allies in the media.
In your opinion. But in my opinion, and many others on here, that is simply not true.
I don't condone basing our country's economic policy on ideology over what is backed up by facts and expert analysis. But I suppose some people still believe that the world was made in 7 days for ideological reasons so I am aware that other opinions are out there.
To para phrase one of Obama's best lines in one of the debates during the last US elections 'The seventies are on the phone, they want their rhetoric back!'
You keep using phrases like ideology, hard leftist, socialist. I am guessing you went to college/uni 20 or 30 years ago. This rhetoric belongs in the post war era. Communism as a model for building a society has been tried and been found wanting. It is dead.
All modern democracies aspire to the versions in place in the US, Canada, Western Europe, parts of Eastern Europe and a few other countries dotted around the rest of the world. Whilst these societies are all unique and are continuously evolving they are all becoming more and more alike as the political debate has moved away from blindly following a particular ideology to one trying to find the right balance between the free market economy and state control and national economies and the the global economy, whilst at the same time protecting and recognising individual freedoms and civil liberties.
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They were however responsible for running a damaging tax and spend policy which weakened the UK's financial stability, meaning that the effects of the global financial crisis on the UK economy were much worse than they would have otherwise been and directly leading to the austerity policy.
..you are agreeing that both administrations have been utterly useless then?
Because a casual reader of this thread would be amazed that posters from both sides think their chosen party are saviours and the best ever with all the (only) perfect solutions and the other lot are evil clueless demons.
For every outrageous claim, a scratch around finds a counter claim.
All this outrage over zero hours masks the fact that even if you take the 600,000 zero hours contracts out of the equation, (and the proportion of that number who are on such contracts against their will make it a smaller number), the number of people out of work is still what 2 million less than when Labour departed.
Personally I'm finding myself liking the Lib Dem poster
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I said, even though I provided a link to substantiate.
People's body language, does effect their chance of becoming a victim.
Just because you are ignorant of the fact. It doesn't make it untrue.
Perhaps, you should improve your lack of knowledge, before casting aspersions.
Anyway, I'll leave it there, but ask in future, that you know what you are talking about, before you become outraged and say I said things which I clearly did not.
They were just brilliant.
(Just dont read this blog from that old right winger, Sean Thomas in the Telegraph
''Labour 1997 - 2010 was the Worst Government Ever.'')
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100240679/exclusive-labour-1997-2010-was-the-worst-government-ever-and-this-is-why/
You are either fair to all or not fair to all. Being selective on who you are fair to is nothing to be proud of or aspire to in my book. It means you are discriminatory and you are justifying discrimination where it would be bigotry in any other situation.
The mansion tax is unfair and justified on a stereotypical presumption that everyone who lives in a valuable property is able to pay an arbitrary poll tax. It should be no more acceptable to stereotype on this basis than it would be to stereotype a muslim as a potential terrorist.
A basic rate tax payer on £25k p.a has take home pay of £1,674 a month, so a 20% tax on gross pay compared to the 26% tax rate giving take home pay of £2,785 for the person earning £45k. The mansion tax increases the tax by 6% of gross pay and a marginal rate on pay above the higher rate threshold I haven't tried to work out but must be near to 50%.
Why should it be assumed that the higher rate tax payer is able to absorb an overnight 6% increase in tax any more than could someone who is a basic rate taxpayer. On no grounds is it a fair tax, it appeals to the basic instincts of envy encouraged by the left.
Now let's put politics back in it. Is Labour the answer. Hell no - in Millibands words. They are part of the establishment system that sh*ts on 'unimportant' people too. It is just they are closer to the answer than the tories. Faced with the choice I will go with that, especially as they have a leader for the first time in a long time, who actually does believe in justice. Good luck to him I say being part of an establishment party, but in the absence of any other choices he'll get my vote.
After I have donated to the poor millionaires some on here are so bothered about of course.
Let's stop pretending that poverty is the fault of the rich. Let's stop pretending that poverty is able to be eliminated or is worsening when it is defined by reference to average pay that is always increasing. Poverty through illness and disability and lack of work is one thing and few would object to giving to provide support.
Poverty through taking drugs and having children on benefits without a father to provide any financial support is another. Many see it as unfair having to finance a lifestyle choice and would prefer it is discouraged rather than encouraging the choice through taxpayer subsidies which would be better applied elsewhere.
Milliband a leader who believes in justice and fairness and paying your fair share who moved his property about to avoid paying tax. Diane Abbott a passionate socialist who sends her children to fee paying schools. Yes vote Labour the party that will end the privileges of the elite to help the poor (but the leaders will participate in the privledges in the meantime).
Vote for Labour who will tax the rich yet operated a lower tax regime than the current. Government who are supposed to be the ones favouring the rich. Talk is cheap, ask Nick Clegg about tuition fees.
Chizz you are wrong. The mansion tax is not able to be rolled up and paid on sale unless you are a basic rate tax payer. It is then additional inheritance tax paid perhaps twenty years too late for it to help the NHS today, the current justification for it.
Having sympathy for those liable for the mansion tax is not required, acknowledging unfairness is invited as an option to being a hypocrite if you really believe in fairness. Otherwise admit to it being OK to be prejudiced as long as it is not yet on the official list of banned prejudices.
The solution to poverty is jobs and economic growth not taxation fair or unfair. Encouraging business is to encourage jobs and economic growth. I am dismayed by the anti business sentiment as if any positive help for business is intended to be at the expense of the poor or to make the rich better off.
And saying labour had nothing to do with the economic problems in this country is like going outside in the winter without a jumper on, getting pneumonia and saying it was the cold weather's fault.
I am voting labour not because I completely agree with everything they say, but because I've seen too much suffering under the Tories and there is more devastating cuts to come, I don't think our normal people and services would survive another 5 years.
The failing NHS due to overstretched staff and equipment has already cost lives in my opinion and now we have to sit back and watch someone we love die because of it. So many others in that situation too it's beyond sad.
Food banks, or the increasing use of them, may not be a big issue for most on here and I hope none of you ever have to use one but the increase in "working" families having to use them goes to show how bad things have got, why should someone who works hard for their wages still not have enough left to feed his/her family?
The benefit cap although a good idea in principle, has pushed innocent children into severe poverty. Not all people are claiming benefits because they don't want to work, many have been pushed into that situation due to redundancy, relationship breakdown or ill health. The cap is £500 per week per family but includes all benefits including housing it is fine for a family of 3 or 4 living in rural England but devastating for families of 5 or 6+ living in a big town. The cap I agree with but it should be variable to at least protect the kids that are starving as a result of it.
The bedroom tax again great idea in principle but has flaws. People have acknowledged that they are in too big a property and are being penalised but everyone in the same boat at the same time is not solving the problem, the penalties should only be applied when someone is offered a smaller suitable property and turns it down, otherwise they are being penalised for something that is out of their control.
Cameron and Osborne have made so many mistakes but won't acknowledge them, they won't change them and they want to make things worse. If voting labour is a step towards getting Conservatives out then that's what I'm going to do.
But this bit seems to suggest that the government can "encourage jobs and economic growth" without changing taxation or spending tax revenues in a different way to how it is currently done.
How exactly do you propose a taxation- and budget-neutral method of "encouraging business" and "encouraging jobs and economic growth"?
In any event, valuations will I anticipate be the huge issue. We know council tax bands do not help here; we know Land Registry values may very well be out of date; we know people have been digging holes under their houses to add cellars; spending large on kitchen refurbs, etc, etc. So, it seems to me that it is almost certain, (because we've seen it happen with the ambulance chasers and PPI claims firms) that a whole army of valuation appeals firms will spring out of nowhere to assist those owners who have had their property valued at, say, £2,050,000 to demonstrate that they paid over the odds a little bit and the actual worth now, with a small amount of wear and tear and renovation needed is in reality only £1,999,500.
It is likely to be chaotic and will bring in nothing like the money promised once bureaucracy has had its slice.
BTW, a Govt. (of any persuasion) would like nothing more than to get people to downsize to a £1mn house. An extra £153,750.00 stamp duty brought in on the purchase of the £2mn house plus £43,750 on the £1mn house. Lovely stuff!
Party holding constituencies in which all 92 football league clubs are located.
thanks
You'll see Forest and Notts County are different colours for opposite sides of the river as Forest are not within Nottingham City.
1 Green vote in Woolwich!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/the-milifandom?utm_term=.ty96BKvp2#.nq7dO79x3w
For example I consider myself normal
After working 22 yrs for o e company I took redundancy and invested 80% of what I had into starting a company
I have a mortgage that is far from being paid off
I have a loan that I pay off that I took to improve my house 6 yrs ago as o could not afford do it on my wages and our out goings
I have 3 kids one car and a dog, I work on average 100 hrs a week over a full 7 days
This enables my wife to stay at home and look after a 13 yr old boy who has adhd and dispractia (spelling) a five yr old girl and a 1 yr old boy
So I can try my hardest to make a better life for them
Now I consider that normal and I consider a labour gvmt not in favour of people like me
To say a labour gvmt is for normal people and conservatives for an elite group of people is just wrong
If I am not a normal UK ccitizen and it is not normal that people work hard to provide
Then wtf is normal
You keep using phrases like ideology, hard leftist, socialist. I am guessing you went to college/uni 20 or 30 years ago. This rhetoric belongs in the post war era. Communism as a model for building a society has been tried and been found wanting. It is dead.
All modern democracies aspire to the versions in place in the US, Canada, Western Europe, parts of Eastern Europe and a few other countries dotted around the rest of the world. Whilst these societies are all unique and are continuously evolving they are all becoming more and more alike as the political debate has moved away from blindly following a particular ideology to one trying to find the right balance between the free market economy and state control and national economies and the the global economy, whilst at the same time protecting and recognising individual freedoms and civil liberties.