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

[meghatronic]

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me, or arguing with me...

Completely agreeing, sorry!

 

[robgmun]

I don't know if any of those comments about big letters were directed at me, but just in case, I hope nobody on here is stupid enough to think I did it for any reason other than the fact they were headlines.

Britboy is way more guilty of big text and underlines then you ever were, that who i was aiming it at personally, can't speak for others here through

PS Name on that tory bird!!!

 

[meghatronic]

PS Name on that tory bird!!!

She's not even good looking?

I enjoyed reading this earlier:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/15/labour-single-parent-families
JK Rowling is wrong on single parents
The author is amiss when she says Labour better serve single parents, but the Tories are right to support married couples

 

[iamtheoneneo]

peoples stupidty really does amaze me, 'yeh lets keep labour in bc they can clearly sort out our economy' - how exactly? 13 years of boom and bust indicates that they cant do jack.

id rather have a fresh perspective on it then same old same old getting nowhere..
if a company is on the brink , the manager normally gets sacked
if a football club is constantly losing then the boss at the top gets sacked.

but somehow when our country is in the **** (0.5billion in interest a day!) many people think that keeping the same people in charge is the best option..its like some sort of fear of something new and fresh and most importantly a different opinion of how to handle a crysis.

the only good thing labour have done in the past 5 years is line the pockets of those without jobs and create a lazy society going nowhere whilst grabbing as much money from the rich as possible - and then people wonder why they go to other countries for relief! ridiculous.

 

[Chris1712]

peoples stupidty really does amaze me, 'yeh lets keep labour in bc they can clearly sort out our economy' - how exactly? 13 years of boom and bust indicates that they cant do jack.

id rather have a fresh perspective on it then same old same old getting nowhere..
if a company is on the brink , the manager normally gets sacked
if a football club is constantly losing then the boss at the top gets sacked.

but somehow when our country is in the **** (0.5billion in interest a day!) many people think that keeping the same people in charge is the best option..its like some sort of fear of something new and fresh and most importantly a different opinion of how to handle a crysis.

the only good thing labour have done in the past 5 years is line the pockets of those without jobs and create a lazy society going nowhere whilst grabbing as much money from the rich as possible - and then people wonder why they go to other countries for relief! ridiculous.

Lol, clearly a gaming forum .

But yes I generally agree, unfortunately they've managed to breed a bunch of scroungers that will vote for them their whole life, combine this with our hilariously mis-proportioned electoral system and they have a good chance of staying put .

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Lol, clearly a gaming forum .

it takes a very special politician to handle crysis....and they need a good rig to boot.

 

[Chris1712]

it takes a very special politician to handle crysis....and they need a good rig to boot.

Scrap the election, whoever can create the best Crysis custom config wins. Extra points for not resorting to making us buy better graphics cards, or taxing Crytek for making the game too good.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Primary school class sizes among highest in the developed world

Spending on pre-primary and primary education has decreased between 2002 and 2010.

Small class sizes are said (Civitas report) to be essential to primary school pupils’ performance.

NB: According to the OECD, there is no evidence to suggest that smaller class sizes (within the kind of margins of adjustment of public policy) in secondary schools have any effect on pupil performance. The Labour government has chosen to focus on reducing secondary school class sizes regardless. We’ll post on this later.

Only six other countries place under-11s in bigger lessons than the UK, it was revealed.

The UK spends 5.9 per cent of GDP on all levels of education, compared with an OECD average of 5.7 per cent.

Telegraph, OECD report

The UK’s primary schools have bigger class sizes than almost every other developed country, despite ministers’ injecting millions of pounds into keeping them low, an international study has revealed.

The gap between private and state school class sizes is higher in the UK than in any other country with on average 13 more pupils in a state primary class than in a private one.

Guardian

Another report released today by think tank Civitas found that at infant school level, small classes are essential to young children’s educational achievement.

Independent

This underperformance in primary school is in turn leading to further underperformance in secondary schools.

Civitas report

http://futurefairforall.org/post/428639575/primary-school-class-sizes-among-highest-in-the

 

[britboy4321]

Hasn't poll tax since been shown to be the best/fairest in retrospect? Plus we pay so much more tax under a Labour government.

Nice post .

I think the main failing of the poll tax was that the man in the street did not consider it fair. Canons of taxation and all that ..

Mind you council tax isn't exactly fair either, as in if you are prepared to live in a 1 bedroom squat for your whole life, your local tax will be low even if you are a multi-millionnaire. It's kind of self-policed however as people with loadsamoney as a general rule want to live somewhere nicer!

 

[Paton]

None tbh.

 

[meghatronic]

I think the main failing of the poll tax was that the man in the street did not consider it fair. Canons of taxation and all that ..

Indeed... people that have never paid this form of tax before in paying tax shocker. Irony (?) being that Council Tax is just as unfair.

 

[britboy4321]

peoples stupidty really does amaze me, 'yeh lets keep labour in bc they can clearly sort out our economy' - how exactly? 13 years of boom and bust indicates that they cant do jack.

Under Labour we had the biggest, longest boom in history. It was blimin' awesome. Decent paying, awesome jobs for anyone that wanted one enough. Everyone prepared to knuckle down made an absolulte mint. I repeat, it was just awesome.

Calling all those years some kind of 'fail' is ridiculous, especially considering the tories didn't manage half as much boom before their (MUCH WORSE) bust.

 

[Dolph]

I think the main failing of the poll tax was that the man in the street did not consider it fair. Canons of taxation and all that ..

Mind you council tax isn't exactly fair either, as in if you are prepared to live in a 1 bedroom squat for your whole life, your local tax will be low even if you are a multi-millionnaire. It's kind of self-policed however as people with loadsamoney as a general rule want to live somewhere nicer!

The key thing is most people's definition of 'fair taxation' is one that shifts the burden to anyone but then.

The only truly fair approach is a flat percentage system where everyone pays an equal percentage of income, or an equal percentage of cost of non-essential purchases.

 

[Dolph]

Under Labour we had the biggest, longest boom in history. It was blimin' awesome. Decent paying, awesome jobs for anyone that wanted one enough. Everyone prepared to knuckle down made an absolulte mint. I repeat, it was just awesome.

Calling all those years some kind of 'fail' is ridiculous, especially considering the tories didn't manage half as much boom before their (MUCH WORSE) bust.

We also had the biggest bust in history, and the growth generating boom (as opposed to the borrowing funded continuation of the boom) was over by 2002... The rest has been largely a lie funded by massive unsustainable state borrowing and overspending.

 

[britboy4321]

Indeed... people that have never paid this form of tax before in paying tax shocker. Irony (?) being that Council Tax is just as unfair.

That's kind of opinion. Most people (including me) think council tax is fairer than poll tax.

When poll tax came in my dad was earning > £70000 per year. I was earning £14,100. The tories thought the fairest way was if we both paid identical local tax, to the penny, irrespective of, well, just about any personal circumstance.

I literally had to save for weeks to afford my tax bill. My dad p***ed himself laughing about it as his tax had fallen straight through the floor, down to virtually nothing compared to what he paid previously.

It was so obviously an outrageous situation. My old man liked it though, as he got extra-super-minted!

 

[meghatronic]

Under Labour we had the biggest, longest boom in history. It was blimin' awesome. Decent paying, awesome jobs for anyone that wanted one enough. Everyone prepared to knuckle down made an absolulte mint. I repeat, it was just awesome.

Calling all those years some kind of 'fail' is ridiculous, especially considering the tories didn't manage half as much boom before their (MUCH WORSE) bust.

You're a troll, I finally got it! That, or are a Labour minister.

"Stability is necessary for our future economic success. The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain's underlying economic performance." (GB 1997)

 

[britboy4321]

The key thing is most people's definition of 'fair taxation' is one that shifts the burden to anyone but then.

The only truly fair approach is a flat percentage system where everyone pays an equal percentage of income, or an equal percentage of cost of non-essential purchases.

Agreed. Unfortunately the poll tax had precisely NOTHING to do with income OR purchases OR standard of life. It was just your tax bill = Amount the council needs / number of people. Full stop *.



A lot of poorer people suffered a lot as their tax bills went through the roof (like sudden increase of > 400%). Honestly mate, it was pretty nasty at the time ...


* yes there are very, very small exceptions, like some pensioners etc. But the sentence was about the basic premise of the tax.

 

[atpbx]

"Manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation” - Gordon Brown in legal defence, 2008

Thats a good one, ever spinning, with one face he promises the world, with the other one he tells you not to believe a word he says.

 

[Dolph]

Agreed. Unfortunately the poll tax had precisely NOTHING to do with income OR purchases OR standard of life. It was just your tax bill = Amount the council needs / number of people. Full stop *.

Neither does it's replacement though, because house value has no bearing on anything else, especially if it's not a new purchase.

A lot of poorer people suffered a lot as their tax bills went through the roof (like sudden increase of > 400%). Honestly mate, it was pretty nasty at the time ...

I know it was, it was at least a nasty shock to have to pay an equal portion of the cost of the services everyone decided they were entitled to.

The fundamental problem is local councils are too big and do too much that they don't need to, as well as do it inefficiently and staff militancy gets in the way of reform. All these relate to the inability of people to choose their service provider when services are funded by taxation (which is ultimately money taken using the threat of force).

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Under Labour we had the biggest, longest boom in history. It was blimin' awesome. Decent paying, awesome jobs for anyone that wanted one enough. Everyone prepared to knuckle down made an absolulte mint. I repeat, it was just awesome.

Calling all those years some kind of 'fail' is ridiculous, especially considering the tories didn't manage half as much boom before their (MUCH WORSE) bust.

• British house prices soared by 88.5% between 1997 and 2007, according to the OECD. In the U.S. the rise was 64.5%.
• Britain's household debt rose to 176.9% of disposable income in 2007 from 104.8% in 1997. During the same period, U.S. household debt rose only to 105.8% of disposable income from 64.3% in 1997.
• The increases in Germany and France were considerably lower.
• The gross value, in inflation-adjusted prices, of output from all production industries combined fell by 3% between 2000 and 2007. Their employment level dropped by nearly 1.1 million over the same period.
• Financial services output output soared by 48% and 33% respectively from 2000 to 2007, compared with 19% for the overall economy. Their combined employment level reached nearly 6.7 million in 2007, an increase of more than one million.
• Pension funds lost £100bn (£100k in retirement capital per average saver) after Gordon Brown's tax raid http://futurefairforall.org/post/431053858/pension-crisis-blame-pinned-on-gordon-brown-who
• UK financial markets hit far harder in the “global” crisis than its counterparts
  • On March 17, 1998, the FTSE-100 index closed at 5834 points. On close on the 10th Febuary 2010, it was down 12%.
  • In France, the CAC index is down less than 1%
  • In Germany, the DAX is up 12%
  • In America, the DOW is up 15%
  • In Hong Kong, the HANG SENG is up 77%
• GDP per capita has fallen 1.5% during Gordon Brown’s premiership
• Since March 17, 1998, sterling has lost about 14% of its value against the Swedish krona, 24% against the Chinese yuan, 33% against the Swiss franc and 35% against the Japanese yen.
• 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.

You seem to be under this stupid and insane illusion that the country is far wealthier as the result of the boom. We have the biggest spending deficits since the last world war, and our debt is going to hit £1trillion very soon (even sooner if you take into account Brown's Enron-style hidden public debt in the PFI system).