Bollitics: VT General Election Poll #5 - Leaders Debate Two

[LondonLax]

Nice picture of Tony in todays' press :winkold:

http://yfrog.com/873nsj

That's quality.

Those page 3 girls really are brilliant. Perhaps we should be electing them to form a government.

[Jon]

What a disaster that was. Riots in the streets!

out of interest do you think it was the policy or the person behind the policy that caused the riots ?

we've had unpopular policies since those times but never have the "people" been mobilsed in the way they were back then ..

The policy was grossly unfair, and the person responsible for it refused to listen to either advice from within her inner circle, or the voice of the people.

It was an autocratic, unpopular policy, from a PM that had lost touch with a great sector of the populace (some will say she never had it :winkold: ).

It was the beginning of the end for her.

[tonyh29]

The policy was grossly unfair

it didn’t matter what your house was worth or how many people lived in it. Everyone paid the same as everyone else: nice and equal.

surely the poll tax epitomised fairness and equality – something which New Labour are obsessed with ...

Politics aside, if council tax is indeed a tax on services, surely it should be in proportion to their use. The assumption that because a house is worth X then the demand on services will be Y is unfounded ?

[Jon]

The policy was grossly unfair

it didn’t matter what your house was worth or how many people lived in it. Everyone paid the same as everyone else: nice and equal.

surely the poll tax epitomised fairness and equality – something which New Labour are obsessed with ...

:?

that's why it was so unfair.

should we all pay the same rate of income tax?

The Poll tax completely ignored ability to pay - it had Tory selfishness stamped all over it, in big blue ink.

at least the council tax takes into account wealth in some way. I believe the wealthiest should alway be asked to help out those least able in our society. Thatcher (and the poll tax) did not think that. She thought the poor/less fortunate/less able should help themselves.

I cannot square with that philosophy, and the poll tax was a partial embodyment of that ethos.

[drat01]

and just to add on the Poll Tax thing, after Thatcher was kicked out Lamont raised VAT to 17.5% to pay for her disgusting policy - something we still suffer from now

[leviramsey]

at least the council tax takes into account wealth in some way. I believe the wealthiest should alway be asked to help out those least able in our society. Thatcher (and the poll tax) did not think that. She thought the poor/less fortunate/less able should help themselves.

I cannot square with that philosophy, and the poll tax was a partial embodyment of that ethos.

Not that council tax is particularly "progressive" anyway...

[Richard]

and Labour haven't changed despite the fact that we are all still "suffering"

[Richard]

It's as if the last 13 years haven't happened and Labour have not had a chance to "correct" anything that they and their supporters feel is unfair

[leviramsey]

It's as if the last 13 years haven't happened and Labour have not had a chance to "correct" anything that they and their supporters feel is unfair

Indeed... New Labour are the furthest right wing government the UK has had in many (more than four) decades.

[drat01]

Rubbish Levi - if you were correct then explain

- Minimum wage

- Banning of Fox Hunting

- New Deal

- NI Peace process

- Sure start

- Tax credits

etc etc etc

[snowychap]

True, that will come from the massive public spending cuts that the Lab/Con/Lib party are all studiously avoiding mentioning. The election debate currently is a total sham imo because they are avoiding the elephant in the room - spending cuts and big tax rises.

And on the very subject:

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says it is 'striking how reticent' Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been on tackling the budget deficit

Britain's leading financial thinktank today launched a strong attack on all three main political parties for their failure to come clean about the swingeing public spending cuts they will implement in the next parliament.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said it was "striking how reticent" Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg had been during the campaign on how they planned to tackle the UK's record peacetime budget deficit.

In an eagerly-awaited pre-election health check, the IFS said the public had been left in the dark about a period of sustained austerity in public spending.

"Over the next four years starting next year (2011-12), Labour and the Liberal Democrats would need to deliver the deepest sustained cuts to spending on public services since the late 1970s", said Robert Chote, the IFS director. "While starting this year, the Conservatives would need to deliver cuts to public spending on public services that have not been delivered over any five-year period since the second world war."

The IFS said after taking into account pledges to ring-fence parts of public spending such as the NHS and overseas aid, the Conservatives would need to axe the budgets of unprotected Whitehall departments by £63.7bn in inflation-adjusted terms by 2014-15. Of these, only 17.7% had so far been specified.

Similarly, Labour had announced measures totalling just 13.3% of what it would need to slash spending by £50.8bn and the Liberal Democrats 25.9% of the £46.5bn they would need to save in order to meet their deficit reduction goals.

"Repairing the public finances will be the defining domestic policy task of the next government," Chote said.

"For the voters to make an informed choice in this election, the parties need to explain clearly how they would go about achieving it. Unfortunately, they have not. The opposition parties have not even set out their fiscal targets clearly. And all three are particularly vague on their plans for public spending. The blame for that lies primarily with the government for refusing to hold a spending review before the election."

The IFS said that all parties were committed to a fiscal tightening worth £71bn in today's terms, or 4.8% of fiscal output. Labour planned to do so with a ratio of 2:1 between spending cuts and tax increases, the Lib Dems 2.5:1 and the Conservatives 4:1.

It contrasted the plans of the parties today with the record of the Conservatives during the fiscal tightening that followed Britain's recession of the early 1990s. Then the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases was 1:1.

"This may suggest that all the parties are being overambitious in the extent to which they expect spending on public services to take the strain," Chote said. "If so, the next government may rely more on further tax increases and welfare cuts that any of the parties are willing to admit to beforehand."

[wiganvillain]

Rubbish Levi - if you were correct then explain

- Minimum wage

The US, notoriously Right wing have had that longer than us

- Banning of Fox Hunting

WTF has that got to do with left or right wing

- New Deal

Not something I'd be boasting about

- NI Peace process

Granted, they finalised it but again not specifically right or left wing

- Sure start

Not sure

- Tax credits

new names for old benefits

etc etc etc

Sorry Drat, I don't think you can argue with Levi on this

[kidlewis]

Rubbish Levi - if you were correct then explain

- Minimum wage

- Banning of Fox Hunting

- New Deal

- NI Peace process

- Sure start

- Tax credits

etc etc etc

Major did an enormous amount towards the peace process, if you are saying NI Peace process was entirely down to Labour then you're wrong.

fair play on minimum wage, tax credits (some of them) and sure start. Fox hunting ban in comparison with those isn't really as important in terms of change to the country.

[drat01]

It's not an argument - I was just pointing out his error

[leviramsey]

Even then, I'd argue that even if we take peace as something left wing (despite in my experience wars being more a hallmark of left wing governments),the minor matter of Iraq outweighs NI.

And tax credits and so forth are fundamentally right wing ideas (the idea of a negative income tax was developed by a Liberal-turned-Conservative politician (so someone who could be expected to agree with Thatcher on economic matters had she been around in the 80s) and refined by a certain Milton Friedman).

[TheDon]

- New Deal

This is one of the things that really annoys me about labour though. New deal is something awesome that could provide real benefit to jobseekers, instead it's outsourced out to the lowest bidder who exist solely to make money.

I was stuck on it after being out of work for 6months, and the "training provider" they sent me to was a complete waste of time. The only thing you did there was CV and letter writing (something the Jobcentre does inhouse anyway) and then you just sit at a computer (which the people there outnumber 5 to 1) doing job search.

Eventually they'll stick you on a "course" which consists of... cv and letter writing, and then jobsearch with a couple of people trying to find you a voluntary jobplacement to get experience. The choices for that were 90% retail, all offering a chance of a job at the end... yet no one ever got one (why would they, the stores had a constant stream of free labour, why employ someone when you can get the work done for free. These weren't small stores either, this was Zavvi and H&M).

The training providers were paid 2 grand for every person they took on, with bonuses after every so many weeks and if they got the person a job, so they just crammed as many people as possible in to small rooms.

If the money was used on actual training, qualifications (oh sorry, you could get a CSCS card) or things that would be useful for a jobseeker (driving lessons for example) then it could have been a much better scheme, but it constantly failed to actually offer anything that would give anyone a "new deal".

Now they've changed it to "flexible new deal" which I'd be interesting in finding out if it's the same. I expect it will be, it's still external companies providing the "training", so I'm expecting it'll still be shove as many in as possible treating the jobseeker as cattle.

[Richard]

Levi, now your getting into facts chap that's hardly fair!

[drat01]

Even then, I'd argue that even if we take peace as something left wing (despite in my experience wars being more a hallmark of left wing governments),the minor matter of Iraq outweighs NI.

And tax credits and so forth are fundamentally right wing ideas (the idea of a negative income tax was developed by a Liberal-turned-Conservative politician (so someone who could be expected to agree with Thatcher on economic matters had she been around in the 80s) and refined by a certain Milton Friedman).

Oh Levi - how wrong you are.

You claimed (wrongly) that

New Labour are the furthest right wing government the UK has had in many (more than four) decades.

So a simple Maths says back to 1970? So more right wing than Thatcher? More Right wing than Major? More right wing than Heath? - You may think so, but nah!

Now who said that peace was left wing? - you did - the fact is the Tory party and its backers have always been very aligned to the Unionists. The territory of the right wing and its followers - a massive other subject but happy to discuss your errors if you like

Tax credits are right wing? Sorry I do not understand your logic Do you understand how they work in the UK?

How much do you get?

The amount of tax credits you get depends on things like:

* how many children you have living with you

* whether you work - and how many hours you work

* if you pay for childcare

* if you or any child living with you has a disability

* if you're aged 50 plus and are coming off benefits

Your payments also depend on your income. The lower your income, the more tax credit you can get.

[Guest Ricardomeister]

The policy was grossly unfair

it didn’t matter what your house was worth or how many people lived in it. Everyone paid the same as everyone else: nice and equal.

surely the poll tax epitomised fairness and equality – something which New Labour are obsessed with ...

Politics aside, if council tax is indeed a tax on services, surely it should be in proportion to their use. The assumption that because a house is worth X then the demand on services will be Y is unfounded ?

I am not sure whether that was a serious comment but it has to be the most ridiculous or hilarious (I would assume it was said as a joke as the poll tax was by far and away the most unpopular policy of any party in my lifetime!) that I have seen on this forum! Thanks for brightening up my day!

[mjmooney]

The policy was grossly unfair

it didn’t matter what your house was worth or how many people lived in it. Everyone paid the same as everyone else: nice and equal.

surely the poll tax epitomised fairness and equality – something which New Labour are obsessed with ...

Politics aside, if council tax is indeed a tax on services, surely it should be in proportion to their use. The assumption that because a house is worth X then the demand on services will be Y is unfounded ?

I am not sure whether that was a serious comment but it has to be the most ridiculous or hilarious (I would assume it was said as a joke as the poll tax was by far and away the most unpopular policy of any party in my lifetime!) that I have seen on this forum! Thanks for brightening up my day!

To be fair to Tony he didn't say it was popular. He just said that it epitomised fairness and equality. That doesn't necessarily equate to everybody liking it.

Disclaimer: not my views, just being pedantic!