15 minutes should do just say you're Scottish and watch the cold shoulders coming in at speed
Poll: General election voting intentions poll
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15 minutes should do just say you're Scottish and watch the cold shoulders coming in at speed
Isn't the UK so far behind they'd need to be building a house every 7 minutes?
Caporegime
What empirical evidence do you have that housing benefit has pushed up rents; yet alone that it's a "key driver"?
It's certainly the case that cuts have had a pretty minimal impact, and they've been much more aggressive than any increase.
For myself I'm now a SNP supporter. While the vote for independence was a failure the party has taken over the opposition vote in Scotland with Labour's failure to support the poorer section of society ("bedroom tax"/Trident).
I expect maybe 30+ seats in the election and not as bad as our media are making out but a Labour/SNP coalition to really scare the right-wing press.
While I support the "bedroom tax" in principal it shouldn't be affecting those on disability.
I expect maybe 30+ seats in the election and not as bad as our media are making out but a Labour/SNP coalition to really scare the right-wing press.
While I support the "bedroom tax" in principal it shouldn't be affecting those on disability.
You're a very very odd fellow aren't you? Get help bud.
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Not quite sure why their stance on the "bedroom tax" and Trident are considered a failure to support the poor? The "bedroom tax" is simply the state not subsidising spare rooms. I do agree it shouldn't be affecting the disabled, and those with a genuine reason to have an extra bedroom (not the lack of use of the word spare there).
Trident is a safeguard for everyone though. Rich and Poor, Young and Old, makes no difference. We are all protected to some extent from it being there. Sure, the world has changed, but obviously not enough. Ukraine were told their borders were safe if they let go of Nuclear weapons, that didn't work out so well for them. Crimea is now lost, and the entire country is plunged into "civil" war. I suspect the news would be different if they were still Nuclear armed.
They write that every time someone suggests that Dave's obsession with trying to censor the internet "for the children" is a bad thing.
The latter 2 are reasonable but the first one has absolutely no basis in reality and is completely redundant given the latter.
What is the immigration problem, please enlighten me. The fact that immigrants increase GDP I and are net economic co to ufos is some how a problem?
Or do you mean we should let in more productive immigrants and throw out the unproductive native, and that is the problem Britain faces? If so I agree, we should be looking to increase immigration and get it in line with other countries, for some reason immigration is far to low in the UK and these needs rectifying.
Soldato
The government haven't sent me a card again, so as usual i'm disenfranchised.
Soldato
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What exactly do you mean?
If you mean registering to vote, you have until April 20th, no one does it for you.
Just pop over to
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
And do it yourself.
Caporegime
Yes - most new build properties in London are buy-to-vacate, bought by rich foreign investors as wealth stores.
Interesting, far more association and council housing built under the coalition than under labour, another place where the coalition have been better for the poor...
If that table is correct then it looks like housing association building has been increasing for a number of years. Out of interest how long does it take for local authorities to set in motion (and build) new housing stock?
Caporegime
And the last two years?
Perhaps my eyes are deceiving me, but is that really true for association housing...? I expect I am missing the point and the two are to be taken together... but it just read oddly to me!
Also, can the rise in council housing truly be associated with the coalition? I don't know myself, but I'd be impressed if they were responsible in entirety in the jump between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 of built houses in an 11 month period since their election.
Soldato
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I cannot see how the housing crisis can be divorced from the uncontrolled net migration into the UK since the 2000's. Ran at approx 150k a year which is higher than the rate of building without demographic trends increasing demands too.
For asylum seekers this will include housing benefit which helps underpin rental prices. Also given how poor we are at infrastructure planning must have some impact on services.
As to comments about the economic crisis, personally I do not blame Labour for that anymore than the Conservatives it was a truly global phenomenom. The fiscal crisis that followed was an entirely Labour problem. They didn't mend the finances during the good times in preparation or the bad times instead they spent heavily thinking the good times would never end. All the measures required to bring the deficit under control can be laid at Gordon Brown's door in my opinion.
For asylum seekers this will include housing benefit which helps underpin rental prices. Also given how poor we are at infrastructure planning must have some impact on services.
As to comments about the economic crisis, personally I do not blame Labour for that anymore than the Conservatives it was a truly global phenomenom. The fiscal crisis that followed was an entirely Labour problem. They didn't mend the finances during the good times in preparation or the bad times instead they spent heavily thinking the good times would never end. All the measures required to bring the deficit under control can be laid at Gordon Brown's door in my opinion.
Pretty much this. Although Tony Blair has to take a big chunk of the flack too. He was the PM for most of Labours policies.
Whilst I don't blame Labour for the crisis itself, their blaze attitude towards spending in the good times have a massive impact on how the country was able to deal with the aftermath of the crisis.
Looking at mmj's quote:
It is clear to see that the Labour governments spending was rampant when the financial crisis hits. Pre-2007 these were obviously boom years, yet the deficit still managed to increase by 57% from circa £26Bn to £41Bn (peaking at £43.5Bn). So rather than saving for the inevitable, they just increased spending more and more.
He obviously jokes about loads of benefits scroungers there (~2008) materialising into existence, when the reality is that they were mostly there, but due to the amount of "give" in that governments policies, when people did start to lose there jobs, not only did the tax take decrease, these people were now taking away through benefits. Thus the sharp rise in the deficit. Although that is hardly the whole story either.
Policies such as these cannot be sharply cut back either. People have become used to a certain lifestyle on benefits, and you can't take away their 20 a day and sky tv without a lot of noise. But at least the coalition are moving in the right direction. A 30% deficit drop in this parliament is decent enough and hasn't crippled the country. The economy is getting stronger every day, and a regular 1000 new jobs helps. More of the same should see us back to historical levels soon enough, and things will be good again.
What we don't really need is a hung parliament, or weak leadership. But more of the same please.
So no, the crisis can't be levelled entirely at Labours front door. But what can be, is the countries inability to cope with it at that time. Boom times are a good time to reduce the deficit, and start saving. However, they decided to do the opposite.
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Caporegime
How much did GDP increase in the same period? Since the deficit is normally expressed in terms of a percentage of GDP that is important. I don't honestly understand the argument that Brown was responsible for the fiscal mess, but not the economic crisis - they are one and the same. It's not the £10bn of spending cuts that could have been made prior to the global economic crisis that are significant, it's the £110bn of public spending that was necessary to prop up the banks that is the most significant issue at hand.
You can talk about people on benefits - for sure it's a problem, but not when discussing the financial crisis as it's such a tiny part of public spending, the largest percentage of the welfare spend goes on pensioners.
You realise that more of the same is a hung parliament right?
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