Poll: General election voting poll round 3

[doodah]

My God, at this rate, Balls and Ed look competent with their finances. £8bn extra a year (if they win, can't wait for the spin they will put on that when it turns out it's e.g. £800m extra a year) and now the right-to-buy pledge. The disabled and poor are in for a kicking!

 

[Diagro]

I'm voting UKIP.

Why?

Because I can.

 

[bam0]

You've just confirmed what I said. The issue was not RtB but the lack of new social housing. Rather than criticise a scheme which allows poor working class people to get a new house, your criticism should be about the lack of new social housing.

So benefits are bad, except when the government is massively subsidising their house purchases with taxpayer money, or when the government is giving money to private landlords through housing benefit, sensible.

 

[doodah]

Plans to build an extra 400,000 homes funded by council house sales

Any one know what the coalition's pledge for house building was and what the actual figure is?

 

[Freakbro]

You've just confirmed what I said. The issue was not RtB but the lack of new social housing. Rather than criticise a scheme which allows poor working class people to get a new house, your criticism should be about the lack of new social housing.

That was the last point of 3....what about the other 2.

 

[Danthus]

So housing stock will be flogged off at a 35% discount in order to fund more houses being built.

Hmmmmm, can't see any problem there.

 

[platypus]

You've just confirmed what I said. The issue was not RtB but the lack of new social housing. Rather than criticise a scheme which allows poor working class people to get a new house, your criticism should be about the lack of new social housing.

..and/or criticise successive governments who have done nothing to tackle the problem because no one is brave enough to do anything about the housing market.

I'm voting UKIP.

Why?

Because I can.

Well at least it's well thought out.

 

[FutileBreadMachine]

Err, No it really isn't, and Thatchers policy in the 80's has been criticised by both sides of the political spectrum for the massive cluster **** it has caused decades down the road.

For starters it keeps getting mentioned that people in social housing aren't necessarily 'poor' anyway, so if they want to buy a house, just buy from the market like anyone else.

They are getting the benefit from cheap subsidised housing while living there, making it easier to save a deposit for the aformentioned 'normal' housing market, so why should they get the massive double whammy of up to 70% discount off a house - paid for out of tax payers money!

And you can't look at it in isolation. Since they don't rebuild enough social housing to cover the loss from the sales, it leaves us in a worse position overall.

Agreed. Can't believe they are bringing in this carp after all the damage it's done to the London housing market. I was going to vote Tory, but will now have to look at Lib Dem's (they are in charge of my borough anyway).

 

[ubersonic]

Any one know what the coalition's pledge for house building was and what the actual figure is?

The Tories didn't promise any numbers in 2010 neither did the LibDems, the LDs did however pledge to "Bringing 250,000 empty homes back into use. People who own these homes will get a grant or a cheap loan to renovate them so that they can be used: grants if the home is for social housing, loans for private use."

 

[Zethor]

Total net population increase is 403,722 of which 53% is attributed to migration.

This happens all over the developed world so it is invalid as an argument against immigration.

 

[Tunney]

The Tories didn't promise any numbers in 2010

Nope, but they did make in an official policy later. All extra homes sold under RTB were to be replaced with new homes.

Despite this, none of the 2,750 homes in London sold under the scheme since 2010 haven't been replaced. Literally not one.

 

[platypus]

This happens all over the developed world so it is invalid as an argument against immigration.

Why is it invalid? It might just show that immigration is high over the developed world. Whether you agree that this is too high or not is a different matter.

 

[estebanrey]

This happens all over the developed world so it is invalid as an argument against immigration.

It's a valid argument against ubersonic's strange maths that say immigration makes up only a 5th or our population growth which is clearly rubbish. It accounts for half of it.

 

[D.P.]

Not sure if trolling, or really doesn't understand logic.

I ask again, why do you get to ignore deaths but include emigration to lower the immigration figure? You are picking which figures suit your argument and it reminds me of the logic behind the "missing dollar" riddle where plus and minus figures are deliberately interchanged to get a weird result.

Let's break this down to the bare essentials. There are 4 things which affect the population number...

1. Births (+)
2. Deaths (-)
3. Immigration (+)
4. Emigration (-)

So if you want to know what the gross increase is then you must only use the positive figures, you CANNOT include any of the negatives which you are doing by using "net migration" given that is the sum of Immigration minus Emigration. We can look at this for 2013 which was

Births = 698,512
Immigrants = 526,000

So 1,224,512 "new people", of which immigrants made up 43%.

If you want to see net population change then you include all the figures equally, so for 2013...

Births = 698,512
Deaths = 506,790
Immigrants = 526,000
Emmigrants = 314,000

So...

Natural Causes (Births minus Deaths) = 191,722
Migration (Immigration minus Emigration) = 212,000

Total net population increase is 403,722 of which 53% is attributed to migration.



If you still can't understand why you must be consistent with how you use plus and minus figures, then lets look at this question another way. Instead of asking how much immigration contributes to population, turn it around and ask what would happen if we closed all borders so no one could get in or out of the country (No, I'm not advocating this as policy but merely trying to prove a mathematical point).

So with no one coming in or leaving the country in 2013 we only have births and deaths which as we see above means a net increase of 191,722 people. However the borders weren't closed and in fact net population rose to 403,772, a difference of 212,050 more people whose presence here is solely due to migration.

If I wanted to "skew" the numbers (as you say) I could therefore claim that migration has more doubled the amount of population increase than natural causes. Only that is statistically accurate so I'm not skewing anything other than the narrative.

You are again ignoring deaths of immigrants and presenting screwed logic to prove your point.

You are removing deaths from births bit but deaths from the total of births and net migration.

Net immigration accounted for 1/5of the population additions, deaths removed certain amount if immigrants and a certain amount of British. You need to find those figures

 

[Zethor]

Why is it invalid? It might just show that immigration is high over the developed world. Whether you agree that this is too high or not is a different matter.

The lifestyle the average Westerner has grown accustomed to does not happen by magic, it has some requirements, such as a steady population growth or workers willing to do certain jobs. Immigration makes up for overall low birth rates and the insufficient skill diversity of the natives.

 

[[TW]Fox]

So housing stock will be flogged off at a 35% discount in order to fund more houses being built.

Hmmmmm, can't see any problem there.

Well to be fair the market value of a house and it's cost to build are vastly different numbers, the former being higher than the latter.

 

[Tunney]

The lifestyle the average Westerner has grown accustomed to does not happen by magic, it has some requirements, such as a steady population growth or workers willing to do certain jobs. Immigration makes up for overall low birth rates and the insufficient skill diversity of the natives.

This is the root cause of Japan's current economic woes. An ageing population, a low birth rate and strictly-controlled immigration.

 

[ubersonic]

You are again ignoring deaths of immigrants and presenting screwed logic to prove your point.

You are removing deaths from births bit but deaths from the total of births and net migration.

Net immigration accounted for 1/5of the population additions, deaths removed certain amount if immigrants and a certain amount of British. You need to find those figures

I've given up arguing with him, the are more interesting things to discuss with more intelligent posters...

This is the root cause of Japan's current economic woes. An ageing population, a low birth rate and strictly-controlled immigration.

I hear the best solution to this is to build a massive defensive line and hope Germany don't have Zeppelins

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Good grief /facepalm. One of the truly most bizarre posts I've read on here.

FYI Current Population + Births + (Immigrants - Emigrants) is a totally meaningless figure. Births + Immigrants would at least be meaningful but it wouldn't be your population increase because your population (i.e. number of people living here) never increases by that much in the time period. A more accurate description would be "number of new people in the population". Deaths - Emigrants would be your "number of people leaving the population" and the difference between the two is your population increase. Really this would be simple stuff for GCSE General Studies.

Quite, I was looking at his post with my mouth literally open how someone could actually believe that tripe.

 

[ElliorR]

Here's info from Office for National Statistics.

506,790 deaths were registered in England and Wales for 2013. I think Scotland's was double that <runs>

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/death-reg-sum-tables/2013/sb-deaths-first-release--2013.html