Poll: General election voting intentions poll

[elmarko]

Please, not Milliband. He'll destroy this country

Not really, the difference between the main two entities are minimal at best.

 

[Danthus]

Milibands biggest issue is the way he comes across, not necessarily what he says.

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

Not really, the difference between the main two entities are minimal at best.

Because his party did so fantastically last time. Oh wait.

 

[elmarko]

Because his party did so fantastically last time. Oh wait.

By what metric are you using to determine they do so badly compared to average performance of the last 10/20 years?.

Unless of course you are attributing the global financial crisis with a single political party in the UK.

 

[Dolph]

Given that employer is in the business of making money who do you think will be required to be more "flexible"?

What is a citizens income?

Many employees also like to flexibility, I don't believe in interfering with an agreed contractual relationship more than necessary, and provided the employer isn't demanding exclusivity clauses or doing things like making their staff sit in the break room unpaid during quiet periods or not paying roaming employees travel time then the system is working imo.

I have worked in a zero hours job, it was only a problem when stupid management overpromised regular full time hours to too many staff, but my response to that was to take my labour somewhere else that had the hours available.

Citizens income involves replacing means tested benefits with a universal Income, my preferred implementation then involves offsetting that against income taxes to give a good security net and remove the benefits trap. The big problem for workers with flexible contracts is that a variable income doesn't work well with the means tested benefits system we currently have, leading to strange situations and unnecessary stress.

 

[Dolph]

Mansion tax is regressive as it doesn't take in to account ability to pay. I don't think the government should be forcing people to re-mortgage just to pay a tax for example.

The funny thing is you could replace the term mansion tax with excessive housing fine and keep everything the same. To randomly punish people for exceeding an arbitrary value is just mental.

 

[RDM]

Labour are popular still in Scotland & it would go do significantly better than another Conservative government (who get next to no votes at all there).

Last general election the Conservatives got only 3% less votes than the SNP.

While this is likely to change it will be more to do with Labour votes going to the SNP than the Conservatives losing ground.

 

[scorza]

Mansion tax is regressive as it doesn't take in to account ability to pay. I don't think the government should be forcing people to re-mortgage just to pay a tax for example.

So sell up and let someone else who works harder live there. That's pretty much what was happening to the tenants of the New Era Housing Estate before public pressure (and not the law) forced a climbdown.

 

[RDM]

So sell up and let someone else who works harder live there. That's pretty much what was happening to the tenants of the New Era Housing Estate before public pressure (and not the law) forced a climbdown.

Aren't you being somewhat hypocritical as you considered what New Era were doing was wrong. Why is it suddenly OK when it is the government doing the same?

 

[scorza]

Aren't you being somewhat hypocritical as you considered what New Era were doing was wrong. Why is it suddenly OK when it is the government doing the same?

Well fine if any political party was promising to introduce say, German style rent controls then a mansion probably wouldn't be needed. However there is no law being proposed that I am aware of that would stop another New Era scandal, and people shouldn't have to enlist celebrities and fight to stay in their homes.

 

[elmarko]

Last general election the Conservatives got only 3% less votes than the SNP.

While this is likely to change it will be more to do with Labour votes going to the SNP than the Conservatives losing ground.

Which was my point, a vast majority of the SNP voters are likely to be more in favour of a coalition with Labour than having another Conservative government.

 

[Dolph]

Well fine if any political party was promising to introduce say, German style rent controls then a mansion probably wouldn't be needed. However there is no law being proposed that I am aware of that would stop another New Era scandal, and people shouldn't have to enlist celebrities and fight to stay in their homes.

If you don't own it, it isn't yours.

 

[Dolph]

Which was my point, a vast majority of the SNP voters are likely to be more in favour of a coalition with Labour than having another Conservative government.

If labour sell out England to make a government with the SNP, it will probably be the last time they get power at all.

 

[elmarko]

If labour sell out England to make a government with the SNP, it will probably be the last time they get power at all.

From the perspective of people who would never vote for either party to begin with.

 

[Will Lucky]

If labour sell out England to make a government with the SNP, it will probably be the last time they get power at all.

Depends on the terms, if its one economically very beneficial to Scotland meaning England needs more cuts to compensate, expect the 2016 local elections to be fun for them.

 

[RDM]

Which was my point, a vast majority of the SNP voters are likely to be more in favour of a coalition with Labour than having another Conservative government.

I wouldn't say 16% of the vote is "next to no votes". Which was the bit I was querying.

 

[Tefal]

Dolph can you explain a bit more about the citizens income system and what you mean by how it's offset against tax?

Curious how it works, it like a "negative" value before the tax income that the state would pay you?


Ie all citizens get say 10k a year, then as you earn over 10k it starts to drop on a pound to pound basis till the state is giving you nothing then you start to pay tax after that value.

 

[Freakbro]

It's basically the Negative Income Tax Dolph is a keen proponent of

Have a read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

There are critiscims of it as well as advocates of course, no system is without it's flaws, but it does seem an easier system to administrate than the bloated mess we have now.

One problem is the entire tax rulebook would need to be re-written, which is probably the main stumbling block to implementation.

And also, if the minimum income threshhold is set at say, £10k, it seems the NIT (or citizens income) only pays a proportion of the shortfall, Friedman proposed an arbitrary (we all know how much Dolph loves arbitrary calculations ) 50%. So if the person is earning £6k, they would get an extra £2k from the state.

Working Tax Credits are a form of Citizens income.

And as for paying tax, you would either start immediately at over 10K, or even have a 'tax free' amount, so say you start paying at 15k and then it's usually combined with a flat rate tax, another of Dolphs favourites, but it doesn't need to be.

 

[John40]

If labour sell out England to make a government with the SNP, it will probably be the last time they get power at all.

Agree.

 

[Dolph]

Dolph can you explain a bit more about the citizens income system and what you mean by how it's offset against tax?

Curious how it works, it like a "negative" value before the tax income that the state would pay you?


Ie all citizens get say 10k a year, then as you earn over 10k it starts to drop on a pound to pound basis till the state is giving you nothing then you start to pay tax after that value.

Tax is paid from the first pound earnt, and offset against the income to create an effective tax free allowance. So for example, a £10k citizens income combined with a 33% tax rate creates an effective tax free threshold of £30k. If you withdraw pound for pound, you risk creating a benefits trap as attending work has a cost, both financial and time, so you need to mitigate that.