[Archived] The General Election 2015

[Gav]

So Cameron may well not be telling lies as per GAV's post above

Cameron lied to the electorate, absolutely no doubt about that.

Just caught up on last weeks PMQ's, Jezza has him worried, you can see it in the Tory benches, be good to see how this plays out.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Osborne could let the House of Lords scupper it if he wants. It wouldn't surprise me if that happens or he tries to water it down or come up with some other way to go after those that abuse the benefits system and protect more of those that don't. Interesting though that Labour have been giving mixed messages about whether they would reverse the tax credit changes, I suspect they wouldn't. Remember the so called Bedroom tax? Well Labour proposed that back in 2007 iirc under the Welfare Reform Act and they certainly wouldn't repeal it now.

Problem is that Labour created a benefit culture in this country and that needs reform but how do you go about that without that having a negative impact on someone? And no the answer isn't tax rises on hard working people to keep paying for all of it. Tax the hell out of the rich never works out, the squeezed middle always are the ones that bear the brunt.

[Gav]

Don't believe everything you read RVR, the Tories have stollen many Labour Party ideas but the bedroom tax wasn't one.

As for tax credits, they're an attack on the poor, like the bedroom tax and without a shadow of doubt the Labour Party would scrap both.

How about making Starbucks, Facefcuk and other such companies pay tax at the correct levels?

Unemployments going down Cameron keeps telling us whilst theBritish steel industry has just shed 5000 jobs in the North and Javids getting a working group together, absolutely disgusting Mr Javid, you inept swine.

Why did people vote for these parasites?

[K-Hod]

The answer isn't taxing hard working people more, you're right. But there are a lot of people and corporations not paying taxes as they fall due which is wrong, particularly when it's at the expense of more vulnerable people.

(Yes, I know successive Labour governments didn't fix this problem either!)

[Paul]

Has it though been clearly identified that corporations and individuals who appear not to be paying sufficient tax would generate enough income to satisfy the country's income gap?

I am against the child and tax credit cuts though in the case of child credit feel it needs reviewing and capping - I know one well off family who save all their child benefit to pay for their STs, that can't be right!

For me it is clear that under every government for decades the country as a whole has not paid/generated sufficient taxes to support the standard of living we expect. This is now coming home to roost severely in every sector. The NHS is in a dire state financially, our roads and infrastructure are frankly cr@p, social care under huge pressure, social housing non-existent, the social divide greater than ever and the lack of capital investment may well have gone beyond the point of no return.

As a generalisation the UK has a population which demands high standards, is unwilling to pay for them and understands little of the real value of many things but knows the cost of everything.

We've lived life on the cheap, a credit card lifestyle borrowing money to fund day to day living when the nation's borrowings should have been poured in to infrastructure projects which would create wealth. Today we are paying the price of decades of wasted money and resources.

Only one solution in my mind; collect taxes from every individual and corporation correctly and if it still isn't sufficient increase general taxation to cover the shortfall.

I truely dread to think how it's going to be in 25 years. About the only thing I can do is encourage my kids to put as much money in to pensions and longer term investment as they can. They'll be little or nothing for them when they reach my age.

[Biddy]

As for tax credits, they're an attack on the poor, like the bedroom tax and without a shadow of doubt the Labour Party would scrap both.

I very much doubt that. Granted the Labour party currently doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow so who knows who would make that legislation anyway. The reason I doubt it is that Andrew Marr had shadow chief secretary to the treasury Seema Malhotra on last Sunday and he asked her numerous occasions if Labour would reserve it and she refused to answer.

Unemployments going down Cameron keeps telling us whilst theBritish steel industry has just shed 5000 jobs in the North and Javids getting a working group together, absolutely disgusting Mr Javid, you inept swine.

In all seriousness though, should the government bail out EVERY single failing business. These are private companies therefore why should they be subsidised which many would see as just lining the pockets of the owners. Did you campaign so vociferously in 2008/2009 for Labour to bail out Woolworths and the loss of 27,000 jobs affecting the whole country? My guess is probably not.

I also say EVERY failing company as why should one with 5,000 employees be bailed out and not your local hairdressers with 2 employees? It's still jobs and lively hoods. The Government can't and shouldn't spend money topping up everything.

[Guest]

I am against the child and tax credit cuts though in the case of child credit feel it needs reviewing and capping - I know one well off family who save all their child benefit to pay for their STs, that can't be right!

This is where the voucher argument holds weight, but the counter-argument seems to be that vouchers aren't very dignifying. I know some would genuinely feel that way but, unfortunately, it's a cloak for others who want to spend that money on things that it isn't intended for.

[RibbleValleyRover]

I very much doubt that. Granted the Labour party currently doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow so who knows who would make that legislation anyway. The reason I doubt it is that Andrew Marr had shadow chief secretary to the treasury Seema Malhotra on last Sunday and he asked her numerous occasions if Labour would reserve it and she refused to answer.

In all seriousness though, should the government bail out EVERY single failing business. These are private companies therefore why should they be subsidised which many would see as just lining the pockets of the owners. Did you campaign so vociferously in 2008/2009 for Labour to bail out Woolworths and the loss of 27,000 jobs affecting the whole country? My guess is probably not.

I also say EVERY failing company as why should one with 5,000 employees be bailed out and not your local hairdressers with 2 employees? It's still jobs and lively hoods. The Government can't and shouldn't spend money topping up everything.

Well said.

If you bail out one then you set a dangerous precedent and will under pressure to bail out them all when they get into trouble. You also have to justify spending taxpayers money on these bailouts, there are bound to be situations where you bail out a company a strong majority don't agree with perhaps on ethical grounds.

[Gav]

I very much doubt that. Granted the Labour party currently doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow so who knows who would make that legislation anyway. The reason I doubt it is that Andrew Marr had shadow chief secretary to the treasury Seema Malhotra on last Sunday and he asked her numerous occasions if Labour would reserve it and she refused to answer.

In all seriousness though, should the government bail out EVERY single failing business. These are private companies therefore why should they be subsidised which many would see as just lining the pockets of the owners. Did you campaign so vociferously in 2008/2009 for Labour to bail out Woolworths and the loss of 27,000 jobs affecting the whole country? My guess is probably not.

I also say EVERY failing company as why should one with 5,000 employees be bailed out and not your local hairdressers with 2 employees? It's still jobs and lively hoods. The Government can't and shouldn't spend money topping up everything.

Seema Malhotra couldn't answer the question because we're only 5 months into a new Tory government, how could she answer such a question with another 4 1/2yrs of the Tories? Its probably not even been discussed other than to readily accept that Osbornes cuts are hammering working families and are outrageous. Cameron blatantly lied to the electorate, but whats new, they're all prone to a bit of lies.

As for the steel industry, its interesting that the reason why those workers are losing their jobs is due to China flooding the market with cheap steel due to their economy slowing down massively. Today we see the Chinese president being afforded a state visit full of pomp and circumstance with Cameron and Osborne salivating all over the premier.

The Scottish government have said they're going to pull out all the stops to help the Scottish steel industry much in the way they helped the ship builders and saved that industry.

Whats Cameron doing? he was warned about this years ago and came up with a compensation packages for the energy intensive industry, rhetoric with no end product, he doesn't give a t0ss, nothing in it for him really.

[Biddy]

As for the steel industry, its interesting that the reason why those workers are losing their jobs is due to China flooding the market with cheap steel due to their economy slowing down massively. Today we see the Chinese president being afforded a state visit full of pomp and circumstance with Cameron and Osborne salivating all over the premier.

I actually agree with you here. Of course for balance, Blair and Brown never visited or "salivated" over their Chinese counterparts.

The Scottish government have said they're going to pull out all the stops to help the Scottish steel industry much in the way they helped the ship builders and saved that industry.

again, who is going to pay for that subsidy? My guess would be its to the detriment of the rest of the UK Tax payers.

Also, I've just tried searching for how the Scottish helped the ship builders and I'm struggling. The only semi relevant piece I've found is on the education scotland website that seems to suggest that the Heath government saved 2 shipyards which are now owned by BAE. It looks like as recently as May this year that the Govan site was under threat of closure until BAE decided to invest £100m.

Please point me to a story where the Scottish Goverment save the shipbuilding industry as I am actually finding this quite a good read.

[Paul]

GAV while I agree with much of this we have to talk to China and entertain Xi Jingpin. China's economy has slowed to 6.9% growth - Osborne would give his right testicle for that - and is forecast for GDP growth of 50% in next five years, assuming 7% pa.

We can't exclude ourselves from their markets.

I know nothing about steel but I'd guess its problems are more deeply rooted than cheap

Chinese steel exports.

If we had invested in the UK economy over the last 50 years all these discussions would be irrelevant.

[Gav]

GAV while I agree with much of this we have to talk to China and entertain Xi Jingpin. China's economy has slowed to 6.9% growth - Osborne would give his right testicle for that - and is forecast for GDP growth of 50% in next five years, assuming 7% pa.

We can't exclude ourselves from their markets.

I know nothing about steel but I'd guess its problems are more deeply rooted than cheap

Chinese steel exports.

If we had invested in the UK economy over the last 50 years all these discussions would be irrelevant.

I'm not saying we should shun China, it just irks me that we have the red carpet rolled out when thousands are losing their jobs and several Northern towns are being decimated by job losses in the steel industry and China has played a major role in bring this about.

This has been predicated by the trade unions for many years, but Cameron has done nothing, I wonder why!

[RibbleValleyRover]

Corbyn has appointed Seumas Milne as his Head of Communications. Googling him and reading some of the comments he has made in the past was sure eye opening.

He might be more Marxist than Corbyn himself.

[Baz]

I very much doubt that. Granted the Labour party currently doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow so who knows who would make that legislation anyway. The reason I doubt it is that Andrew Marr had shadow chief secretary to the treasury Seema Malhotra on last Sunday and he asked her numerous occasions if Labour would reserve it and she refused to answer. In all seriousness though, should the government bail out EVERY single failing business. These are private companies therefore why should they be subsidised which many would see as just lining the pockets of the owners. Did you campaign so vociferously in 2008/2009 for Labour to bail out Woolworths and the loss of 27,000 jobs affecting the whole country? My guess is probably not.I also say EVERY failing company as why should one with 5,000 employees be bailed out and not your local hairdressers with 2 employees? It's still jobs and lively hoods. The Government can't and shouldn't spend money topping up everything.

The ministry of defence were asked yesterday about the steel for the new ships they are building, they are duty-bound to buy at the best price, so cannot buy British even if they wanted to, if it's not the cheapest option.

It's pretty obvious that China is using its financial clout to undercut pricing to gain market share, then when the competition is out of business the price will rise again.

[Baz]

Has it though been clearly identified that corporations and individuals who appear not to be paying sufficient tax would generate enough income to satisfy the country's income gap?

I am against the child and tax credit cuts though in the case of child credit feel it needs reviewing and capping - I know one well off family who save all their child benefit to pay for their STs, that can't be right!

For me it is clear that under every government for decades the country as a whole has not paid/generated sufficient taxes to support the standard of living we expect. This is now coming home to roost severely in every sector. The NHS is in a dire state financially, our roads and infrastructure are frankly cr@p, social care under huge pressure, social housing non-existent, the social divide greater than ever and the lack of capital investment may well have gone beyond the point of no return.

As a generalisation the UK has a population which demands high standards, is unwilling to pay for them and understands little of the real value of many things but knows the cost of everything.

We've lived life on the cheap, a credit card lifestyle borrowing money to fund day to day living when the nation's borrowings should have been poured in to infrastructure projects which would create wealth. Today we are paying the price of decades of wasted money and resources.

Only one solution in my mind; collect taxes from every individual and corporation correctly and if it still isn't sufficient increase general taxation to cover the shortfall.

I truely dread to think how it's going to be in 25 years. About the only thing I can do is encourage my kids to put as much money in to pensions and longer term investment as they can. They'll be little or nothing for them when they reach my age.

I don't disagree with most of this, I do think the taxes being avoided are larger than the current budget deficit, and a large percentage of the deficit could be recovered from evasion.

If you look at how we have spent the north sea oil boom money vs the way the norwegians used theirs to set up revenue funding for generations, look at the money received from selling off public assets and given away as pre-election tax breaks etc it's really not hard to see why we are where we are as a nation.

If everyone could see that taxation was fairly recovered, and given out fairly then I think most people would accept potentially paying a little more, however there seem to be legacy items that are unfair like child benefit and the winter fuel payments in that they are given to people whether they need them or not, vs certain large corporations like Google earning millions in the uk and paying less tax than people on the minimum wage.

[Gav]

Should we be surprised?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-tories-are-removing-twice-as-many-people-from-the-electoral-register-in-britains-poorest-areas-a6701446.html

[Rover-the-Top]

Whilst the media go on about the failing steel industry, there's been little consideration for the multitude of UK businesses (and ultimately, the general public) that benefit from being able to import cheaper steel from abroad. The issue is far more complicated than the government simply stepping in to save a few uncompetitive companies.

[Gav]

Whilst the media go on about the failing steel industry, there's been little consideration for the multitude of UK businesses (and ultimately, the general public) that benefit from being able to import cheaper steel from abroad. The issue is far more complicated than the government simply stepping in to save a few uncompetitive companies.

You make a very valid and reasonable point, but surely we should be looking for British steel to support British business if at all possible?

Cameron was warned about the problems in the steel industry back in 2011, he paid it lip service at the time but never acted, and now look where we are, on the brink of losing the steel industry in this country.

After pressure from all sides he's now agreed to speak to Xi about the dumping of cheap Chinese steel, but is it simply too little to late? How many times have we seen this under his watch? acting after the horse has bolted, it shows him as either being a bit thick or just not interested.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Do you think if Labour were the ones in government right now that they would be bailing out these steel companies? Not a chance.

Many factors have led to this but there is a factor of our own making that has had a huge detrimental impact on the Steel Industry and other industries and that is the 2008 Climate Change Act. An Act that has punished industries like Steel Manufacturers with higher energy costs. Countries like China don't have an energy levy like we do in the UK and Europe so that automatically puts us at a competitive disadvantage.

[den]

Do you think if Labour were the ones in government right now that they would be bailing out these steel companies? Not a chance.

They bailed out the banks.

[RibbleValleyRover]

They bailed out the banks.

They had no choice, letting the banks collapse would have affected millions of people. This is why government's are reluctant to bail out companies because if you bail out one then there would be questions about why you didn't bail out another.

My point still stands, I don't think Labour would be bailing out these steel companies.

[Gav]

Do you think if Labour were the ones in government right now that they would be bailing out these steel companies? Not a chance.

Many factors have led to this but there is a factor of our own making that has had a huge detrimental impact on the Steel Industry and other industries and that is the 2008 Climate Change Act. An Act that has punished industries like Steel Manufacturers with higher energy costs. Countries like China don't have an energy levy like we do in the UK and Europe so that automatically puts us at a competitive disadvantage.

Labour aren't in government and its simply not acceptable for Tory apologists to keep throwing out this line.

As for the climate change act, Cameron promised back in 2011 to compensate the steel industry, but like most of his promises he did nothing, he talks a good game and delivers very little.

Steel dumping is illegal, thats exactly what China are doing.

Just on tax credits cuts, the house voted last night and the Tories won the vote by 22. These MP's have been elected by their constituents, how are they serving those constituents by towing the party line and not voting they way they'd like?

If you believe the cuts and wrong then vote that way!

We shouldn't be surprised that more people watched the bake off than voted for the Tories in the election, career politicians on the gravy train the majority of them in the house these days sadly.

[Biddy]

You really are as bad as Jim trotting out the same guff over and over again. As I pointed out a few pages ago, more people watched the British bake off than voted Labour. It's a stupid thing to keep saying.

You have also not managed to back up where you saw that the Scottish government saved the Scottish ship yards.

[Gav]

You really are as bad as Jim trotting out the same guff over and over again. As I pointed out a few pages ago, more people watched the British bake off than voted Labour. It's a stupid thing to keep saying.

You have also not managed to back up where you saw that the Scottish government saved the Scottish ship yards.

Name calling does you no favours Biddy.

Labour aren't in power, so the point you made was irrelevant, the Tories are in power and my point was a fact, i can tell lies if you like?

As for the Scottish government and the ship yards, nobody asked me to back it up did they? but its not hard to see the part that the Scottish government played in saving those jobs/industry, just google it.

[yoda]

Name calling does you no favours Biddy.

Labour aren't in power, so the point you made was irrelevant, the Tories are in power and my point was a fact, i can tell lies if you like?

As for the Scottish government and the ship yards, nobody asked me to back it up did they? but its not hard to see the part that the Scottish government played in saving those jobs/industry, just google it.

Bunkum,

It was it was Jim McColl that saved it, at the expense of Portsmouth I might add