Poll: Which party will get your vote in the General Election?

Which party will get your vote in the General Election?

  • Conservative

    Votes: 704 38.5%

  • Labour

    Votes: 221 12.1%

  • Liberal Democrat

    Votes: 297 16.2%

  • British National Party

    Votes: 144 7.9%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 36 2.0%

  • UK Independence Party

    Votes: 46 2.5%

  • Other

    Votes: 48 2.6%

  • Don't care I have no intension of voting.

    Votes: 334 18.3%
  • Total voters
    1,830
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I think he was referring to 'best' by popularity in this poll, rather than any commentary on the relative merit or popularity of the parties amongst the general population :p
 
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Structural deficit forms part of the public sector deficit. Structural deficit differs from cyclical deficit in that it exists even when the economy is at its potential.

Structural deficit issues can only be addressed by explicit and direct government policies: reducing spending (including entitlements), increasing the tax base, and/or increasing tax rates. It can be described as more "chronic" or long-term in nature hence needing government action to remove it.

The opposite of a structural deficit is a structural surplus. Likewise, the opposite of a cyclical deficit is a cyclical surplus.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_deficit
 
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I think that maybe we should have a single term of the tories as there is now such a large percentage of the population who can't even remember 15% inflation, 15% interest.

Just for fun conservative voters, work out what your mortgage payments would be if there was 15% interest currently. Does it make for pleasent reading? Would you like it?

Yup, believe it or not, we did actually have that situation in the UK because of the conservatives. Of course, purely coincedentally a lot of the rich don't have mortgages at all, just big savings. So they LOVED 15% interest .. yeehaa!

And there are people that will actually say 'I'm voting conservative, because Labour is letting inflation run away at 3%'. We need the tories back for 4 years as a short/sharp reminder to the younger generation about how bad things really can get .
 
Hatter The Mad said:
Randomly came across this graph. This one is interesting, and I love graphs.

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Absolutely, it reflects the findings of that earlier report you linked to - that in essence the idea that private enterprise would step in to replace the massive job losses through closure of the mining and manufacturing industries, and therefore provide welfare, is essentially a fallacy - companies remained in the South-East and the services which were transportable, were transported out of the country or used cheap labour in situ - leaving the government with little option but to step in and provide welfare to those regions. :)
 
Rich_L said:
Absolutely, it reflects the findings of that earlier report you linked to - that in essence the idea that private enterprise would step in to replace the massive job losses through closure of the mining and manufacturing industries, and therefore provide welfare, is essentially a fallacy - companies remained in the South-East and the services which were transportable, were transported out of the country or used cheap labour in situ - leaving the government with little option but to step in and provide welfare to those regions. :)
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Actually, aside from welfare, I would argue that the Labour government has vastly under-invested in the deprived northern areas. Why? Because they are Labour strongholds. the Labour Government invests most heavily in marginal constituencies. They have not invested in roads, rail or business subsidies where they are needed most - to encourage private sector investment.

Of course, lets not forget that it is in Labour's interest to have a welfare trap and keep the trap there - the carrot with which they can use to encourage them to vote Labour, by pushing the fallacy that their welfare will suddenly disappear if they voted for another party.
 
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britboy4321 said:
I think that maybe we should have a single term of the tories as there is now such a large percentage of the population who can't even remember 15% inflation, 15% interest.

Just for fun conservative voters, work out what your mortgage payments would be if there was 15% interest currently. Does it make for pleasent reading? Would you like it?

Yup, believe it or not, we did actually have that situation in the UK because of the conservatives. Of course, purely coincedentally a lot of the rich don't have mortgages at all, just big savings. So they LOVED 15% interest .. yeehaa!

And there are people that will actually say 'I'm voting conservative, because Labour is letting inflation run away at 3%'. We need the tories back for 4 years as a short/sharp reminder to the younger generation about how bad things really can get .
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You have to take the good times with the bad times, welcome to capitalism.

Can't go on living with low interest rates and high debt forever.
 
naffa said:
(D)oh. :p Thinking about it, I don't really get Qlimax's post. :confused:
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nonononono

if you look at the poll votes (on this thread) you will see that most votes are going towards 'conservative' 2nd place goes to 'Dont Care (no vote)' so i say that becuase of this (if we use this poll as a rough guide of what the whole country will do) then it looks like the conservatives will win 'by default' assuming that if the 'no vote' option didn't exist then those votes would go elsewhere :)

see?

i went for 'dont care' as i think they are all corrupt!
 
Interesting interview on Channel 4 news just now with Nobel Laureate of Economics Joseph Stiglitz. He basically said that Darling and Brown's economic strategy is right, that the deficit should be allowed to grow until we return to substantial growth. The overall size of our debt is not a problem in the grand scheme of things, though he did admit there was an issue with the Greek debt at the moment that can easily be overcome by a bit of Eurozone solidarity.

One thing I didn't know is that one of the other PIGS countries, Spain was actually running at a budget surplus before the global economic crisis, which I think indicates that our previous budget deficits are equally irrelevant to the current issues at hand. In fact, I rather suspect the hand of speculators behind all this pressure on European economies - they've had their fun in the US, now it's our turn to suffer.
 
QlimaxUK said:
nonononono

if you look at the poll votes (on this thread) you will see that most votes are going towards 'conservative' 2nd place goes to 'Dont Care (no vote)' so i say that becuase of this (if we use this poll as a rough guide of what the whole country will do) then it looks like the conservatives will win 'by default' assuming that if the 'no vote' option didn't exist then those votes would go elsewhere :)

see?

i went for 'dont care' as i think they are all corrupt!
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Ah right, understand. :cool:

For some reason I didn't realise you were referring to the pole in this thread. :s
 
Something really horrible is underway: taxpayers in the big western economies are being stuffed with everyone else's bad debts. Here in Britain, we've already had to bail out the bankers, and now - whatever Darling may say - we're at risk of having to bail out the PIIGS.

Much more fundamentally, the longer the government borrows on the current humongous scale, the bigger the debt burden that will be loaded onto our backs for decades to come.

Now there are those who say right now we need the government to run a big deficit, because everyone else wants to run a surplus. That is to say, individuals and companies are slashing their spending in order to repay their own debts, and if government wasn't prepared to fill the gap, aggregate spending (aka demand) would collapse. You will recognise good old textbook Keynesianism.

But this argument overlooks a most incovenient truth. Which is that in the Keynesian textbook, government runs a temporary deficit to get the economy through a temporary (ie a cyclical) weakness of private sector demand. However, our current situation is that we're facing a permanent cut in private sector demand, reflecting a permanent cut in our GDP.

The cut comes about because around 6% of our GDP was wiped out by the collapse of the bubble and its associated jobs and profits (and 6% is HMT's figure - it could be higher). It will not return.

And what that means is that however much we might like to shore up demand in the economy, we simply don't have the necessary level of national income to support the current rate of government spending. Sure, in the short-term, the government can continue to fund it by borrowing 13% of our GDP. But at some unknown point - call it 24 hours after George delivers a weak budget in June - the cost of that funding will shoot up as the markets take fright.
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http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2010/02/pass-parcel.html
 
What has Gordon Brown done for Britain since his first Budget?
Jeff Randall

Let’s kick off with the pound: after all, when Mr Brown was in Opposition, he taunted the Tories with the allegation: “A weak currency arises from a weak economy, which in turn is the result of weak government.”

Since March 17, 1998, sterling has lost about 14 per cent of its value against the Swedish krona, 24 per cent against the Chinese yuan, 33 per cent against the Swiss franc and 35 per cent against the Japanese yen.

The euro was not a currency, as such, in 1998, but the website x-rates.com calculates that against a basket of currencies forming the euro, sterling has shed about 27 per cent of its value over the past 12 years. In that time, even the enfeebled American dollar has dipped less sharply than the pound.

I am sure if one looks hard enough (try sub-Saharan Africa), there will be a handful of currencies against which sterling is now stronger than it was on Mr Brown’s big day; but not at the top table. As a result, when buying in overseas markets, the Great British consumer is a six-stone weakling.

Yes, Mr Brown kept us out of the euro. Well done. But in doing so, he has allowed us to see what traders think of the UK’s prospects. Verdict: thumbs down.
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Turn now to the London stock market, where much of what’s left of our pensions, ie long-term savings, tends to be invested. How have we fared?

On March 17, 1998, the FTSE-100 index was 5,834. At close of play on February 10, the day on which I based these calculations, it had fallen to 5,132, a drop of 12 per cent.

Ah, says Mr Brown, this is a global crisis. All industrialised countries have been affected by recession. In which case, what has happened to their stock markets? In France, the CAC index is down, but by less than one per cent. In Germany, the DAX index is up by 12 per cent. In America, where all the trouble began (Mr Brown’s words, not mine), the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by 15 per cent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index is up by 77 per cent. Of the world’s big players, only Tokyo’s main market has fared worse than London’s.

In a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, John Littlewood, a former group director at S G Warburg, concludes: “The London stock market has always performed poorly under Labour governments… its performance under this [one] has been even worse than during previous Labour governments.”

Hard to believe, I know, but true. Under Labour 1964-70, the stock market’s real return (adjusted for inflation) went down by 13 per cent. Under Labour 1974-79 (which included Denis Healey’s grovelling to the IMF), it went down by 11.5 per cent. Under Mr Brown, the London stock market’s decline in real return is more than 20 per cent.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-done-for-Britain-since-his-first-Budget.html
On March 17, 1998, he talked much about Britain’s “deficit reduction plan”, “an unshakeable commitment to prudent monetary and fiscal rules” and, get this, addressing the “structural weakness” of unemployment. These were the yardsticks by which he chose to be judged. What happened?

Well, Britain’s budget deficit, as a percentage of GDP, is running at 14 per cent, the worst among G20 nations, and higher even than in Greece (13 per cent), which is about to be rescued by an EU bail-out. We are borrowing about £180 billion a year, and our stock of debt is heading for £1 trillion.

As for unemployment, there was no figure I could find for March 17, 1998, but for the spring quarter of that year it was 6.3 per cent. Today, it is 7.8 per cent. For those lucky enough to be in work, real wages are under relentless pressure from millions of economic migrants.
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