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Poll: Which party will get your vote in the General Election?
- Thread starter Hatter The Mad
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The election truly started for me today as I received my first piece of election literature and no less than the now infamous Lib Dem Bar Chart™. True to form there was a skewed chart with each bar seeming to follow an unique scale and with no apparent relation to the percentage emblazoned upon it. Captions included: 'Only [Lib Dem candidate] can beat Labour Here' and 'The SNP and Conservatives can't win'. How democratic!
How can they get away with such blatant chicanery?
How can they get away with such blatant chicanery?
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Jeeeeesus the BBC bloggers are now stealing from famous John F Kennedy speeches now!! Well, the old ones are the best ones .. and the 'Ask not what your country can do for you' speech certainly is one of the oldest out there .. guaranteed 'pride maker' as they're called, I'm surprised he didn't start 'England is the greatest country in the world, but it could be even better'!! Of course making people feel good makes them like you .. and they vote for who they 'like' .. actual policy taking a distant second place (or 8th place if you're 'it's a big secret just trust me' Cameron)... blah blah yadda yadda!
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So if I'm dissatisfied with the way my child's school is run, under the Conservative manifesto I can group together with similar like-minded parents and form our own school. Sounds great, if you're already rich and don't need to work to keep a roof over you and your child's head. Not so good for everyone else, the silent majority that Cameron thinks will win him the election. I don't know how anyone can claim that the Conservatives are the party of the privileged with policies like this - or have I missed something?
Thanks, that's a pretty good summary of everything I wanted to know on there.
And I agree; people should take an interest.
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10 reasons why I am not voting for Labour:
1. Labour waste so much of taxpayers' money; funding so many stupid "schemes" that end up being abandoned, resulting in billions lost. One example: The NHS IT system (over £500m) *poof*, money gone, project abandoned. "Oh well", says Mr Brown.
2. Labour's benefits system is a complete and utter joke. Did you know that in many boroughs, if you are earning less than £18k/year you can claim £1000/week for rent in housing benefits? Yes you read correctly. £1000/week.
Labour even have the cheek to say you can keep an extra £20/week if they give you too much for rent! Housing benefits alone cost the taxpayer nearly £20bn a year. You also qualify for this housing benefit if you are on the dole, and you won't have to pay any council tax. Have a couple of kids and you get child benefits on top. Why bother working when you can sit on your arse and live a £55k/year lifestyle courtesy of the taxpayer? It is absolutely disgusting (and I don't know why more people aren't outraged by this, though I suspect it's because not many people actually know about housing benefits, a.k.a. Local Housing Allowance). I agree with having some sort of help if you are genuinely struggling, but this is simply wrong.
3. Labour goes out of their way to increase legislation and bureaucracy in the public sector to "create" more jobs. I have friends who work in this sector, and most of their coworkers are paid high salaries despite being complete morons with virtually no skills, and spend most of the day chatting to each other doing hardly any work. No work gets done, and the equally clueless (and highly paid) managers then think they need to hire more manpower. So then they recruit more mindless idiots, sapping away more taxpayer money.
4. Gordon brown has been running the economy since the beginning of Labour in 1997, and is now the prime minister. The UK economy is a mess, with a ridiculously large deficit that has been ever increasing since 1997. The deficit affects the country's credit rating, which in turn affects the strength of the pound, which in turn affects the cost of importing oil, which in turn affects the price of petrol (and that's just one of many things). If you say "the national debt doesn't affect me", you are sadly mistaken. Do you know how much the UK has to import? (And don't get me started on why so many of our major manufacturing companies have moved overseas)
5. Labour ministers have openly admitted not knowing what their real net immigration rate is (perhaps an example of point #3 above?). A huge number of schools in Britain are already full of kids whose English is their 2nd language, demonstrating that immigration is a big problem especially for education. To handle the situation, they want to introduce a "picking out of the hat" system for secondary school places. What a joke.
6. Who should be primarily blamed for the UK's economy anyway? Surely not the man who has been in charge since the beginning. Oh no, it's all the bankers' fault, the same bankers who've been actually keeping the economy alive and money flowing, (don't forget whilst also paying their "substantial" Income Tax, National Insurance, Employers National Insurance, Capital Gains tax, etc). No it couldn't possibly be anyone else's fault. Man, I bet Mr Brown cried with joy when he woke up that morning and realised he could blame his entire career's failings on the banks. Those greedy greedy bankers, how dare they earn us all this tax money, and have the cheek to award themselves bonuses, our MPs would never do anything remotely like that! *cough cough*
7. Inheritance tax. You have paid taxes all your life. You pay VAT on virtually everything you buy, you pay income tax on your wages, national insurance (+ another 11% employers national insurance if you are contracting), on petrol, for electricity, gas, water, road tax, car insurance, council tax, phone bills, stamp duty, booking flights, extra tax on alcohol... you name it. If you managed to make it to old age with money left, you pay for your own elderly care. If you are lucky enough to still have any assets/money left afterwards, Labour still want 40% of it once you die, minus the price of a small terraced house or studio flat. Your money has already been taxed. If you work hard all your life and want to let your 3 kids share your nice house you worked all those years for, tough luck, Mr Brown is taking 40% of it. Auction time!
8. Remember Jacqui Smith? Sure you do. Guess who specially appointed her as Home secretary? Yep, Mr Brown himself. What a great judge of character!
9. On a personal level, I think Gordon Brown is nothing but a snake. In my opinion he doesn't give a toss about the country's well being, he only cares about his own ambitions. He is a clueless leader and has no idea what he's doing. He even lost us £2bn selling more than half of the UK's gold reserves for goodness sake. What sort of chancellor/prime minister loses £2bn dealing with one of the most stable commodities on earth?
10. After all this fiscal waste, throwing billions away on absolute tripe, blowing further billions on benefits encouraging people to sponge off the state, expense scandals, paying public sector bosses ridiculous salaries, paying millions for advisory boards and not actually making use of them (drugs committee anyone?). Labour then has the audacity to say: "well Britain, you're in trouble, can't imagine why, but I guess we just need more money. More taxes please." And do you know what gets me the most? What really gets me? The fact that the party lacks any balls to take a step back and say "you know what, we acknowledge we made some mistakes and bad decisions. We shall try to amend our ways." No. They just mosey on with not a single trace of humility, and deny anything bad ever happened. It cannot go on like this.
People who won't vote Conservatives "because they don't like that smug git Cameron". I beg of you to just grow up. Just look around. Gordon Brown has been a cancer on this country since 1997. Industries are striking, our deficit is at an all time high, our petrol prices are stupidly high, our taxes are high, unemployment is high, bureaucracy is high, everything is "PC gone mad" these days, and the benefits system is simply disgusting.
I know "Labour vs Conservatives" is and always has been a class-war. But please get real, the majority of these politicans on both sides have grown up in private schools and come from wealthy backgrounds, a lot of them even went to school together. They are all as "out of touch" as each other, and you are really kidding yourself if you think you'll be helping out Pete the plumber by voting Labour.
I work hard to earn my wages and as a British citizen I want to decide what I spend my money on. I am happy for the government to take a slice of my money, so long as they don't take the mick and throw it away. Unfortunately that is precisely what Labour has been doing since 1997.
1. Labour waste so much of taxpayers' money; funding so many stupid "schemes" that end up being abandoned, resulting in billions lost. One example: The NHS IT system (over £500m) *poof*, money gone, project abandoned. "Oh well", says Mr Brown.
2. Labour's benefits system is a complete and utter joke. Did you know that in many boroughs, if you are earning less than £18k/year you can claim £1000/week for rent in housing benefits? Yes you read correctly. £1000/week.
Labour even have the cheek to say you can keep an extra £20/week if they give you too much for rent! Housing benefits alone cost the taxpayer nearly £20bn a year. You also qualify for this housing benefit if you are on the dole, and you won't have to pay any council tax. Have a couple of kids and you get child benefits on top. Why bother working when you can sit on your arse and live a £55k/year lifestyle courtesy of the taxpayer? It is absolutely disgusting (and I don't know why more people aren't outraged by this, though I suspect it's because not many people actually know about housing benefits, a.k.a. Local Housing Allowance). I agree with having some sort of help if you are genuinely struggling, but this is simply wrong.
3. Labour goes out of their way to increase legislation and bureaucracy in the public sector to "create" more jobs. I have friends who work in this sector, and most of their coworkers are paid high salaries despite being complete morons with virtually no skills, and spend most of the day chatting to each other doing hardly any work. No work gets done, and the equally clueless (and highly paid) managers then think they need to hire more manpower. So then they recruit more mindless idiots, sapping away more taxpayer money.
4. Gordon brown has been running the economy since the beginning of Labour in 1997, and is now the prime minister. The UK economy is a mess, with a ridiculously large deficit that has been ever increasing since 1997. The deficit affects the country's credit rating, which in turn affects the strength of the pound, which in turn affects the cost of importing oil, which in turn affects the price of petrol (and that's just one of many things). If you say "the national debt doesn't affect me", you are sadly mistaken. Do you know how much the UK has to import? (And don't get me started on why so many of our major manufacturing companies have moved overseas)
5. Labour ministers have openly admitted not knowing what their real net immigration rate is (perhaps an example of point #3 above?). A huge number of schools in Britain are already full of kids whose English is their 2nd language, demonstrating that immigration is a big problem especially for education. To handle the situation, they want to introduce a "picking out of the hat" system for secondary school places. What a joke.
6. Who should be primarily blamed for the UK's economy anyway? Surely not the man who has been in charge since the beginning. Oh no, it's all the bankers' fault, the same bankers who've been actually keeping the economy alive and money flowing, (don't forget whilst also paying their "substantial" Income Tax, National Insurance, Employers National Insurance, Capital Gains tax, etc). No it couldn't possibly be anyone else's fault. Man, I bet Mr Brown cried with joy when he woke up that morning and realised he could blame his entire career's failings on the banks. Those greedy greedy bankers, how dare they earn us all this tax money, and have the cheek to award themselves bonuses, our MPs would never do anything remotely like that! *cough cough*
7. Inheritance tax. You have paid taxes all your life. You pay VAT on virtually everything you buy, you pay income tax on your wages, national insurance (+ another 11% employers national insurance if you are contracting), on petrol, for electricity, gas, water, road tax, car insurance, council tax, phone bills, stamp duty, booking flights, extra tax on alcohol... you name it. If you managed to make it to old age with money left, you pay for your own elderly care. If you are lucky enough to still have any assets/money left afterwards, Labour still want 40% of it once you die, minus the price of a small terraced house or studio flat. Your money has already been taxed. If you work hard all your life and want to let your 3 kids share your nice house you worked all those years for, tough luck, Mr Brown is taking 40% of it. Auction time!
8. Remember Jacqui Smith? Sure you do. Guess who specially appointed her as Home secretary? Yep, Mr Brown himself. What a great judge of character!
9. On a personal level, I think Gordon Brown is nothing but a snake. In my opinion he doesn't give a toss about the country's well being, he only cares about his own ambitions. He is a clueless leader and has no idea what he's doing. He even lost us £2bn selling more than half of the UK's gold reserves for goodness sake. What sort of chancellor/prime minister loses £2bn dealing with one of the most stable commodities on earth?
10. After all this fiscal waste, throwing billions away on absolute tripe, blowing further billions on benefits encouraging people to sponge off the state, expense scandals, paying public sector bosses ridiculous salaries, paying millions for advisory boards and not actually making use of them (drugs committee anyone?). Labour then has the audacity to say: "well Britain, you're in trouble, can't imagine why, but I guess we just need more money. More taxes please." And do you know what gets me the most? What really gets me? The fact that the party lacks any balls to take a step back and say "you know what, we acknowledge we made some mistakes and bad decisions. We shall try to amend our ways." No. They just mosey on with not a single trace of humility, and deny anything bad ever happened. It cannot go on like this.
People who won't vote Conservatives "because they don't like that smug git Cameron". I beg of you to just grow up. Just look around. Gordon Brown has been a cancer on this country since 1997. Industries are striking, our deficit is at an all time high, our petrol prices are stupidly high, our taxes are high, unemployment is high, bureaucracy is high, everything is "PC gone mad" these days, and the benefits system is simply disgusting.
I know "Labour vs Conservatives" is and always has been a class-war. But please get real, the majority of these politicans on both sides have grown up in private schools and come from wealthy backgrounds, a lot of them even went to school together. They are all as "out of touch" as each other, and you are really kidding yourself if you think you'll be helping out Pete the plumber by voting Labour.
I work hard to earn my wages and as a British citizen I want to decide what I spend my money on. I am happy for the government to take a slice of my money, so long as they don't take the mick and throw it away. Unfortunately that is precisely what Labour has been doing since 1997.
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I quite like the idea of encouraging startup businesses and various charities where government run facilities currently are. I'd quite like to see a system wherein you could say, go to the job centre, they tell you that nowhere has any jobs open, but then have some kind of infrastructure wherein individuals can start up as a part of a small group an initially government funded charity for services that areas lack or that could over time replace the government run facilities.
From what i've seen so far i'll probably vote tory, even though i'll probably be worse off I feel our country is more important than any individual. Now we are out of the recession the deficit needs to be brought back under control although i'm not convinced in 'ring fencing' individual services is a good idea as obviously non-ring fenced services will suffer much deeper cuts than they would otherwise.
I would be happier though if the parties were more honest regarding the scale of the problems we face and credible plans to adress them.
I would be happier though if the parties were more honest regarding the scale of the problems we face and credible plans to adress them.
That about sums it up
EDIT - Though, did Labour implement Inheritance tax or just update it?
Soldato
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Tory's did...... in the 18th century. Or at least its forerunner. Updated in the 70s under Labour and rebranded as Inheritance tax in the 80s.
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I think it dates back to the 1700s (capital transfer tax), but was rebranded 'Inheritence tax' in 1986.That about sums it up
EDIT - Though, did Labour implement Inheritance tax or just update it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8618974.stm
Brown: I make a mistake allowing banks to persuade me to de-regulate them. Takes a big man to admit when he's made a mistake, the important thing is that we put those mistakes right and don't make them again in future.
Brown: I make a mistake allowing banks to persuade me to de-regulate them. Takes a big man to admit when he's made a mistake, the important thing is that we put those mistakes right and don't make them again in future.
I believe that it isn't just parents that can set up schools though, it would allow companies to do it too. My guess would be that it will also eventually lead to the position where exisiting schools can remove themselves from local authority control if enough parents support it. The whole point of it is part of the "small state" idea where not everything is centrally controlled.
Except of course he is still trying to deflect blame on to the bankers about it. All the politicians are at it. It is also a shame he didn't admit to his mistakes when it was all going wrong and instead shifted as much blame as he could to the bankers. When is he going to admit that he left the country in a much worse position to deal with the banking crisis because he ran up debts during a boom period and has no real intention of changing his prolifigate spending habits?
10 reasons why I am not voting for Labour:
some stuff
+1
very good post - i agree 100% with everything here and i can't believe other people can't see it.
Sorry, but the best way to ensure that the same mistake isn't made again is to remove him entirely, if i keep making the same mistakes at work then i would be shown the door very quickly
EDIT - +1 @ Heofz best post of the thread so far in my opinon
I'll probably be voting LibDem this time around. Voted SNP in the last couple of elections but won't be again after their dealings with the Lockerbie bomber. I don't trust New Labour or the Tories over their backroom deals on the digital bills or handling of the expenses/corruption as they're just as bad as each other.
lol, brown is such a lying idiot - 'i made a mistake ALLOWING the banks to persuade me to de-regulate them'. what sort of pathetic argument is that? 'oh yeah, i caused the mess, i caused all the trouble by removing all the laws, but it was those pesky criminals that told me to do it, poor me, i'm the real victim, just like you'.
he knew exactly what he was doing, the bank of england told him at the time - its on public record what eddie george thought about deregulating and adopting a low interest rate policy and the dangers it created.
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