Poll: General election voting intentions poll

Voting intentions in the General Election - only use the poll if you intend to vote

  • Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

    Votes: 2 0.3%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 287 42.0%

  • Democratic Unionist Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 67 9.8%

  • Labour

    Votes: 108 15.8%

  • Liberal Democrat

    Votes: 25 3.7%

  • Other party (not named)

    Votes: 15 2.2%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 2 0.3%

  • Respect Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Scottish National Party

    Votes: 36 5.3%

  • Social Democratic and Labour Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 4 0.6%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 137 20.0%
  • Total voters
    684
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
OldCoals said:
...

Not sure which is worse, the fact that the Tories think people are stupid enough to believe it or the fact that people will believe it.
Click to expand...

I think what's worse is that Osborne did exactly this for 3 or 4 consecutive budgets. Why is it a good thing when the Conservatives do something, but when Labour do something it's the end of the world. Just shows you how much of an influence the right-wing press has in this country.
 
delta0 said:
You have to consider not only the people affected by the tax but also those aspiring to earn more. Work hard in many professions and you can easily get into that tax band which is a bit painful, more of a punishment on working hard and achieving. Earning more shouldn't be punished.
Click to expand...

Ahh the old fallacy that high wages are the result of 'hard work'.

We don't have a meritocratic system, we have one based on supply and demand. If you have a rare skill, you get paid more than someone who doesn't, but the latter may well work 'harder' than the former.

I don't always agree with Guardian columnists but George Monbiot makes this point brilliantly in a recent article....

One of the most painful lessons a young adult learns is that the wrong traits are rewarded. We celebrate originality and courage, but those who rise to the top are often conformists and sycophants. We are taught that cheats never prosper, yet the country is run by spivs. A study testing British senior managers and chief executives found that on certain indicators of psychopathy their scores exceeded those of patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders in the Broadmoor special hospital.

If you possess the one indispensable skill – battering and blustering your way to the top – incompetence in other areas is no impediment. The former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina features prominently on lists of the worst US bosses: quite an achievement when you consider the competition. She fired 30,000 workers in the name of efficiency yet oversaw a halving of the company’s stock price. Morale and communication became so bad that she was booed at company meetings. She was forced out, with a $42m severance package. Where is she now? About to launch her campaign as presidential candidate for the Republican party, where, apparently, she is considered a serious contender. It’s the Mitt Romney story all over again.
Click to expand...

Bear said:
I think the point of it is to ease the burden on a section of society which are the ones that actually pay for anything.

If you accept the figures of about £45k which are bandied about to be a net contributor then only about 12 to 13% of the working population pay for all the services. Everyone else is a net drain on the country to varying degrees.

The Tories it would seem, think, you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them. Labour think its ok so screw the group of people that pay for everything.
Click to expand...

That is a circular reasoning though. If you have a system where the people at the top are paid 100s of times more than the people on the bottom, then you create the necessity for those people to pay more as a counter balance.

The reason the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes (or whatever the figure is) is because they take/demand/expect 90% of the wages given out, hence a circular problem.

The refuse workers where I work get around £20k, their boss gets £38k, his boss gets £65k, his boss gets £110k and his boss, the Chief Exec, gets £160k. So basically rather than being paid a fair amount more, it seems people expect to be paid almost double for going one line up the chain.

If the CE was on £90k, his subordinate on £70k, his subordinate on £50k and the boss of the refuse workers on £35k, then you'd have £128k you could use to increase the bin men's wages (in our case we have 60 so they'd get more than a £2k payrise each bringing them to just under £23k).

This in turns means less of them will need things like family tax credits and housing benefit and there is less need for higher earners to pay proportionally more. You're still being rewarded for being promoted, the person at the top is still significantly better off than the ones at the bottom, but there is a fairer share of the wealth.
 
Last edited:
estebanrey said:
Ahh the old fallacy that high wages are the result of 'hard work'.

We don't have a meritocratic system, we have one based on supply and demand. If you have a rare skill, you get paid more than someone who doesn't, but the latter may well work 'harder' than the former.

I don't always agree with Guardian columnists but George Monbiot makes this point brilliantly in a recent article....





That is a circular reasoning though. If you have a system where the people at the top are paid 100s of times more than the people on the bottom, then you create the necessity for those people to pay more as a counter balance.

The reason the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes (or whatever the figure is) is because they take/demand/expect 90% of the wages given out, hence a circular problem.

The refuse workers where I work get around £20k, their boss gets £38k, his boss gets £65k, his boss gets £110k and his boss, the Chief Exec, gets £160k. So basically rather than being paid a fair amount more, it seems people expect to be paid almost double for going one line up the chain.

If the CE was on £90k, his subordinate on £70k, his subordinate on £50k and the boss of the refuse workers on £35k, then you'd have £128k you could use to increase the bin men's wages (in our case we have 60 so they'd get more than a £2k payrise each bringing them to just under £23k).

This in turns means less of them will need things like family tax credits and housing benefit and there is less need for higher earners to pay proportionally more. You're still being rewarded for being promoted, the person at the top is still significantly better off than the ones at the bottom, but there is a fairer share of the wealth.
Click to expand...


Business' are usually very efficient. If it genuinely worked out that way, they would have adopted such a model.

The problem with your CE now being on 90K is that he is a damn fine CE. He's got good skills, healthy outlook and is a true asset.

Company B offers him 120k, and he moves. You've now lost out on a key strategist to a competitor.
 
Lifelong said:
The problem with your CE now being on 90K is that he is a damn fine CE. He's got good skills, healthy outlook and is a true asset.

Company B offers him 120k, and he moves. You've now lost out on a key strategist to a competitor.
Click to expand...

I was talking about a general attitude change to wage distribution, not isolated to my place of work.
 
Last edited:
robgmun said:
7-way is idiotic, it'll be a shouty mess. And i fully expect the main 3 to ignore Plaid Cymru and the Greens to snipe and bring down the SNP and UKIP as much as possible
Click to expand...

I, like most voters in the UK, will not have the option to vote for an SNP or Plaid Cymru candidate, so I'll most likely do some channel hopping while the leaders of those parties are speaking. We mustn't let the proletariate get enthusiastic about politcs must we?
 
Lifelong said:
Business' are usually very efficient. If it genuinely worked out that way, they would have adopted such a model.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have that much faith in all businesses!

estebanrey's example illustrates why income inequality is a problem. Top salaries are normally set by the same people who benefit from them, so the hiring of executives naturally becomes an "arms race" for higher and higher salaries, at the expense of every non-executive worker. This is not "efficient" if you're trying to maximise, say, average worker pay.

Rightly or wrongly, executives will tend to pay themselves as much as they can get away with, which is usually as much as the shareholders will stomach. As stated, this has a knock on effect on the spending power of everyone else, demand for services, and so on.

Reminds me of Russell Brand's (of all people!) point that (paraphrasing) "there's plenty of wealth, it's just accumulating in the wrong places". Income inequality has risen sharply since the 1970s, and is inexcusable IMO.
 
Last edited:
So a lot of you people think that gaffs are UKIP exclusives, i'm going to make much more of the effort to show there are just as many if not more from the other parties:

Todays nonse:

Emma McGurrin, ex-Wigan councillor, jailed over fake childcare claims
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-30688565

Bonus nonse:
Marie Rimmer due in court next week to face assault charge
http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/11852513.display/

Third time unluckly for Labour:
Brent councillor Zaffar Van Kawala found guilty of dangerous driving and ABH
http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/...angerous_driving_and_abh_1_3938294?usurv=skip



That's 3 from Labour this week alone
 
Last edited:
estebanrey said:
That is a circular reasoning though. If you have a system where the people at the top are paid 100s of times more than the people on the bottom, then you create the necessity for those people to pay more as a counter balance.

The reason the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes (or whatever the figure is) is because they take/demand/expect 90% of the wages given out, hence a circular problem.

The refuse workers where I work get around £20k, their boss gets £38k, his boss gets £65k, his boss gets £110k and his boss, the Chief Exec, gets £160k. So basically rather than being paid a fair amount more, it seems people expect to be paid almost double for going one line up the chain.

If the CE was on £90k, his subordinate on £70k, his subordinate on £50k and the boss of the refuse workers on £35k, then you'd have £128k you could use to increase the bin men's wages (in our case we have 60 so they'd get more than a £2k payrise each bringing them to just under £23k).

This in turns means less of them will need things like family tax credits and housing benefit and there is less need for higher earners to pay proportionally more. You're still being rewarded for being promoted, the person at the top is still significantly better off than the ones at the bottom, but there is a fairer share of the wealth.
Click to expand...

You wont get any arguements from me about how unfair the distribution is, especially when the top execs cut jobs to save money and then reward themselves large pay rises because the costs to the company has gone down.

That isnt the discussion though, you were talking about mid income people and cuts to the 40% rate. These people arent on x100s salaries, they tend to be people that are relatively senior, high skilled people that sit not much above the 40% rate that are net contributors and are asked to contribute more by people that are net recipients.
 
eatcustard said:
My guess on the winners tonight will be, on debating skills

UKIP
SNP
Lib Dems

The rest are rubbish when it comes to debates
Click to expand...

I just have a feeling that Ed is going to do well tonight. The problem for the Conservatives is that their right-wing press outlets have been so effective at portraying him as some out-of-touch freak, that when people see that he isn't it'll surprise them in a good way.
 
eatcustard said:
My guess on the winners tonight will be, on debating skills

UKIP
SNP
Lib Dems

The rest are rubbish when it comes to debates
Click to expand...

Sad truth is there are more mindless idiots in the UK now than there ever have been - and they keep on breeding more and more (which is why common sense and people with a functioning brain is becoming a rarity nowadays). Those types are the ones who sit there listening to UKIP going "YEH **** DA IMIGRUNTS" and other such lovely sayings like "SEND UM AW BAK FROM WERE DEY CAME FROM!11!!" yet don't have a bloody clue about the other policies they intend to completely scrap, such as maternity leave - yes including for mothers ffs -_- how can ANYONE vote for UKIP is beyond me, just as much as any Labour voters.

scorza said:
I just have a feeling that Ed is going to do well tonight. The problem for the Conservatives is that their right-wing press outlets have been so effective at portraying him as some out-of-touch freak, that when people see that he isn't it'll surprise them in a good way.
Click to expand...

Just by listening to him you can hear he's clueless.
 
scorza said:
I just have a feeling that Ed is going to do well tonight. The problem for the Conservatives is that their right-wing press outlets have been so effective at portraying him as some out-of-touch freak, that when people see that he isn't it'll surprise them in a good way.
Click to expand...

Yes he will probably come out better than "Call me Dave", but he cant cut the mustard with the other 3 and that I hope will make the Commie Labour suffer in the polls
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom