General election

[LukeTom]

I don't think conservatives have fucked us over that hard, England is better than it was when they came in. What it comes down to is the devil you do know is better than the devil you don't.

[Kinchy]

Really? Beginnings of privatisation of the NHS, dismantling our welfare support for the most vulnerable, recession recovery only affecting the richest, no deficit targets hit, no reduction in borrowing, higher education fees, complete fuck up of the education system by Michael Gove, welfare to work programmes that have only reduced unemployment on paper and not in real life, and increasingly pandering to UKIPs far right ideologies.

I would say they have fucked us over.

[Dr. Steve Brule]

Really? Beginnings of privatisation of the NHS, dismantling our welfare support for the most vulnerable, recession recovery only affecting the richest, no deficit targets hit, no reduction in borrowing, higher education fees, complete fuck up of the education system by Michael Gove, welfare to work programmes that have only reduced unemployment on paper and not in real life, and increasingly pandering to UKIPs far right ideologies.

I would say they have fucked us over.

Word.

[LukeTom]

I see it more as saving money within the NHS and saving money on welfare support. It should never be better to stay on benefits than go into work. Living in London I don't want to vote labour because of the 'mansion tax' which is basic a tax on London. The conservatives have done a pretty good job here. And since London taxes prop up the rest of the UK economy, a recovery in London is what is most important.

[pegs]

Luketom your bullshit detector seems to be malfunctioning mate

wish we could just leave london to it's own devices, or at least let us have a scouse state of our own. UKs fucked

[G]

I see it more as saving money within the NHS and saving money on welfare support. It should never be better to stay on benefits than go into work. Living in London I don't want to vote labour because of the 'mansion tax' which is basic a tax on London. The conservatives have done a pretty good job here. And since London taxes prop up the rest of the UK economy, a recovery in London is what is most important.

So your house in London is worth over TWO MILLION QUID but you cant afford an extra £250 a month?
A huge proportion of London properties worth over £2M are owned by non-doms, shell corporations, super rich immigrants or people who dont even live in London full time, and this has a knock on effect on London house prices as a whole. The number of "little old ladies" who have lived in London since they were very small and now happen to find themselves in this situation is close to zero.
If you knew anyone who worked in the NHS or the ambulance service or education you wouldn't think that they are safe under the Tories.

"London taxes" by which I assume you mean "UK taxes paid by companies and individuals who are based in London" may well prop up the UK as a whole, but this is the same for any capital city. London isn't an island and those businesses are in turn "propped up" by the rest of the UK in terms of trivial things like food, water, electricity, workers, customers, tourists etc Not to mention when the huge London (and other major world city based) banking businesses had to be "propped up" by the country-bumpkins of the world when THEY (not the Labour party) FUCKED THE WORLD ECONOMY RIGHT IN ITS COLLECTIVE ARSEHOLE SO THAT THEY COULD BUY A NEW FERRARI !!!!!!   

What really caused the economic disaster of 2008? Terrible corrupt lending practices, market manipulation, profiteering, junk bond manufacturing etc by bankers around the world who weren't properly regulated. What has the coalition government done to protect us from a repeat of this? Fuck all really.

What we need is:-
1. an end to  crippling austerity (not more and deeper)
2. A Tobin tax (not just to raise money but to stabilise markets).
3. Investment in REAL wealth creating industries and innovation (not money shuffling hedge funds that just make things worse).
4. Proper bank regulation with a real risk of jail for people who cause these issues.

Are any of the parties offering this? No. But the Tories are the worst, so vote AGAINST them!


G.

[LukeTom]

Yes, I do live in a house worth over £2m, but no, we cant afford another 3 grand a year. House prices in London have gone through the roof people took out large mortgages on properties which further went up in value, they are not buying new Ferraris their disposable income is not huge. 80% of these properties affected are in London, who are already paying for 40%+ of the UKs GDP. I would think differently if you taxed homes over £4/5m (this would still tax non-doms, shell corporations, super rich immigrants) , but honestly £2m is too low and you are encompassing average people in the three grand a year tax increase who cant afford it.

[Kinchy]

£2m house =/= average person

[carnage]

Yes, I do live in a house worth over £2m, but no, we cant afford another 3 grand a year.

Poor and disabled people are paying 1/2 that 3 grand in bedroom tax to stay in their homes out of 70/week.

How would you feel about moving to another area like you'd be voting for them if you really couldn't pay?

[LukeTom]

We already pay the 40% tax rate, that almost half of what you earn goes to the government about 30k. We already pay stamp duty when we sell the house, which has increased recently. I do not see what is wrong with the bedroom tax, if the government is paying for your housing, and you are living in a house which is too big for you, what is wrong with taxing you for that?

I am an average person, we brought this house 20 years ago for no where near that mark, we got lucky and the area improved and the house prices went up. This tax is forcing people out of their family homes, three grand a year is a huge amount and its unfair charging  the people with large mortgages or people who have simply got lucky.

[carnage]

I am not saying the mansion tax is a good idea, or that the bedroom tax is wrong in principle. I'm wondering how you think 3 grand is a lot of money when poor/disabled people manage to pay 1/2 that out of their benefits.

Without the funds from a sale and often zero income how do expect people who have an extra room to be able to up sticks?

If Labour got in power and you couldn't pay the tax you'd be pissed off about being advised to move to a cheaper property but you are going to vote for a government who are forcing exactly that on poor and often disabled people.

[G]

We already pay the 40% tax rate, that almost half of what you earn goes to the government about 30k. We already pay stamp duty when we sell the house, which has increased recently. I do not see what is wrong with the bedroom tax, if the government is paying for your housing, and you are living in a house which is too big for you, what is wrong with taxing you for that?

I am an average person, we brought this house 20 years ago for no where near that mark, we got lucky and the area improved and the house prices went up. This tax is forcing people out of their family homes, three grand a year is a huge amount and its unfair charging  the people with large mortgages or people who have simply got lucky.

Nearly everyone pays 40% plus in tax one way or another. Sure, when you go into the higher rate tax band it is all called tax and is a bit more transparent, but you don't pay any more national insurance than someone at the top of the 20% rate. Other taxes like VAT, fuel duty, road duty (road tax), council tax etc are NOT means tested either so you pay the same whether on the minimum wage or taking home a bankers bonus of a million quid every year.


Yes there will be a very very small number of people who are in an extraordinary position of owning a now very valuable house for whom that extra £3k a year is a burden, but there is provision for those not in the higher tax bracket to postpone paying it until the house changes hands.

However you have to compare this to David (my family is loaded because we owned a lot of slaves and then got compensated by the government to let them go and then continued to benefit from their labours by re-employing them at "slave wages", ie. we are rich because of government hand outs) Cameron, thinking that everyone on any kind of benefits in this country can be squeezed by 1% (hey its only 1%) to let them keep the top rate of Tax down at 45% instead of 50%.

So yes, if you truely are in the situation you describe then I sympathise, but I still think that it will be easier for you to find £3k a year than it will for a family below the poverty line to find (another) 1%. Its almost like they are taking the piss with the whole 1% comparison...


As to London paying all the tax.  I already covered that, London isnt an island, you NEED the rest of the UK to generate that cash, you think it just magically issues from Alan Sugar's rosy sphincter or something? And why stop at London? A significant portion of that tax was probably generated in a few postcodes, why not cut off tower hamlets etc too and really lord it up? Because then there wouldn't be anyone to clean your offices and empty the bins, they'd all be outside your doors with pitchforks!

The bedroom tax is ridiculous, it assumes that there is plentiful housing out there and people can simply move into a smaller place to avoid it. This is obviously ridiculous, we have a massive housing shortage and moving house is an expensive exercise at the best of times. All these measures that the tories have bought in have caused massive hardship yet saved virtually zero money. They have just resulted in the money going to private companies making an arse of the assesments instead of the actual people who used to get it!!!!


G.

[LukeTom]

Perhaps what you are saying is right, and perhaps if labour did not want to introduce a 'mansion' tax I would side with you and in fact I would quite like to, I do believe allot of what labour is putting forward. But like I said, no matter how much I believe, the conservatives are offering me £3k a year for the next 4 years for my vote. No amount of political idealism is going to argue with that.

[Kinchy]

As long as you are ok, that's fine then

[LukeTom]

Yes? Everyone votes to see themselves better off? I'm not going to vote for labour because I feel some sense of moral duty towards the country/other people, everyone who votes has themselves in mind as #1