Bollitics: VT General Election Poll #6 - Leaders Debate 3

[tonyh29]

hey ho the truth will eventually out and sadly we'll all pay the **** price.

just curious , but don't you think we already are ?

The debates were all about not fuc*ing up , of course you wont get an answer .. haven't you ever seen PM Question time .. when was an answer ever given in it .. I was thinking of having the trades description act thrown at them it's so evasive

But look at yesterday and the perception is Clegg got double tagged on the immigration question ..why ? because he tried to answer the question ..all very refreshing and noble but he broke the golden rule and it may have cost him a lot of votes

Out of interest what specific questions did Brown answer yesterday ? I'm vaguely aware that he might have casually mentioned something about the Tory plan for inheritance tax but i can't be sure as he only mentioned it 648 times which wasn't really enough

now i have this tiny tiny suspicion that you don't like Cameron , i think we've worked that one out .. so can we move on to something new ?

[bickster]

I agree about QT Tony, its why I rarely watch it any more. They should get Paxo to chair it every now and again to stir the **** up a bit

[tonyh29]

Or raising the basic tax to 21% would probably cover it.

ohh sneaky don't recall reading that in the small print ....

just read this piece in the guardian .. not sure how accurtae it is but it's quite interesting (if true)

Raising tax thresholds doesn't help the poorest because they don't have enough to pay income tax. That's the unemployed, low-paid part-time workers and many pensioners. Analysis published this week shows that 3m households in the poorest quarter of the population would see not a penny from this £17bn policy.

Nor is it focused on struggling families. Increasing the income tax allowance is a society-wide tax cut, with most of the proceeds going to the better-off. Only £1bn of the £17bn cost goes on the stated aim of "lifting those on low incomes out of tax". In truth, most of the remaining £16bn is a juicy middle-class tax cut to sell in Conservative marginals around the country. It is an extraordinary priority at a time when public services are facing the axe.

Whereas Labour's tax credits have been progressive, giving most to the poorer half of society, the Lib Dem tax cut would be regressive, giving most to the richer half. Households near the top would get on average four times as much as the poorest.

Full article

[bickster]

Out of interest on the inheritance tax thing, how much would the Tory plan cost the exchequer? I am genuinely curious

[bickster]

I thought it was LibDem policy to increase Income tax by 1%? Certainly was the last couple of elections, I just assumed it was the same again

[snowychap]

Or raising the basic tax to 21% would probably cover it.

ohh sneaky don't recall reading that in the small print ....

Probably because Gringo isn't responsible for the Lib Dem manifesto. :winkold:

[tonyh29]

Edit .. found this instead ...

The Treasury estimates a grand total of 11,000 estates would benefit from the increased threshold – 8,000 of them worth up to £1m and 3,000 worth over £1m.

[Gringo]

grauniad"]The BNP would offer non-white British people £50,000 to leave "overcrowded" Britain and return to the land of their ancestors, the party's leader Nick Griffin said today.

Griffin said the voluntary programme would be open to around 180,000 people a year who "could go back and help develop their own countries". He said the scheme would be funded from the foreign aid budget and money the government is "wasting at the moment on ridiculous climate change adaptation policies".

"We're saying that we'd give resettlement grants ... this is voluntary ... we're looking probably at £50,000 per person," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

I agree with Nick

I'm kind of pinky brown, so deffo non-white and quite willing to feck off to where I came from, if you bung us £50k.

[tonyh29]

I thought it was LibDem policy to increase Income tax by 1%? Certainly was the last couple of elections, I just assumed it was the same again

they seem to balance the books as follows ...

couldn't see any mention of an income tax rise though

Costs of proposals

Increasing the personal allowance to £10,000 per person 1 6,500

Total 16,500

Revenue generated from proposals

Closing tax loopholes and cutting reliefs that benefit the wealthiest

Restriction of tax relief on pension contributions to the basic rate 4,600

Capital gains tax - alignment of rates to income tax rates 3,200

Capital gains tax - reduction of annual exemption to £2,000 900

A 1% levy on the value of properties over £2m 1,700

Green taxation

Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per plane tax 2,200

Introduction of a levy on domestic flights 400

Anti avoidance measures

Income tax, CGT, NICs 1,900

Corporation tax 2,100

Stamp duty 700

Total 17,700

Contingency fund 1,200

[Gringo]

Edit .. found this instead ...

The Treasury estimates a grand total of 11,000 estates would benefit from the increased threshold – 8,000 of them worth up to £1m and 3,000 worth over £1m.

And no doubt 90% of those estates will have already made provisions to ensure the tax bill is minimised - the only people the tories policy will probably impact is the loss of income to the accountants and lawyers who set up the cosy trust funds to manage such arrangements.

[tonyh29]

winner ?

[tonyh29]

And no doubt 90% of those estates will have already made provisions to ensure the tax bill is minimised

may be different in each county but around my way a lot of houses are worth over £1m .. and a lot of the people that live in them are old couples who drive around in 30 year old volvo's and lived in that house since 1950 when they bought it .. they are not wealthy in any sense other than their house is worth over £1m as it happens to be in Surrey and in a nice road

it's why the Mansion tax that means they have to find .5% of the value as a tax is not necessarily fair and also why not everyone with £1m worth of assets is a tax dodging banker with an accountant ..

[Gringo]

And no doubt 90% of those estates will have already made provisions to ensure the tax bill is minimised

may be different in each county but around my way a lot of houses are worth over £1m .. and a lot of the people that live in them are old couples who drive around in 30 year old volvo's and lived in that house since 1950 when they bought it .. they are not wealthy in any sense other than their house is worth over £1m as it happens to be in Surrey and in a nice road

And so they won't miss 40% of the value of that property when they're dead then.

it's why the Mansion tax that means they have to find .5% of the value as a tax is not necessarily fair and also why not everyone with £1m worth of assets is a tax dodging banker with an accountant ..

mansion tax is indeed a different proposal. If all £1m house owners were as honest as your volvo driving pensioners then so much money wouldn't be being deprived from the exchequer and thus creating the need for such a mansion tax as an additional revenue scheme. So again, the rich rich get away with it and the poor rich suffer.

[snowychap]

it's why the Mansion tax that means they have to find .5% of the value as a tax is not necessarily fair and also why not everyone with £1m worth of assets is a tax dodging banker with an accountant ..

I'm pretty sure their proposal is that there is a 1% tax on the value above £2 million (not on the whole amount).

[TheDon]

Once we've joined the Euro, our economy is that of the Euro not Sterling so it can't go back out of sync once we've joined surely?

The currency can't go out of sync, but the needs of the economy can. If we want lower interest rates for the good of British business we wouldn't be able to deliver them if Europe as a whole didn't have the same needs.

Having a currency moving in the opposite direction to what UK business needs would be disastrous, and could drive it into recession.

Just look at what would have happened if we had of joined at the start, we couldn't have slashed interest rates and the pound wouldn't have fell in value which wouldn't have stimulated exports and made holidaying in the UK more affordable and attractive, and we'd have spent longer in a state of recession.

The Eurozone is a disaster when a country undergoes an asymmetric shock (Just ask Greece and Spain!) If we undergo a positive demand shock, whilst the rest of the EU (or even just a few countries) are undergoing negative demand shocks then there is no way the the ECB can deal with it.

If Greece and Spain weren't part of the EU they could have devalued their currency which would have drove demand on their exports and stimulated growth, instead the only options available are bail outs from the ECB.

Sure one currency might be best for the overall EU, but we should be selfish, we shouldn't care about the economic needs of other countries, we should care about being able to control our own economy in the best interests of our own businesses.

The only time the Euro will ever be right is with tighter political unification in Europe, something that not many people have the appetite for.

[markavfc40]

winner ?

Presuming you mean the election then that'll mean we'll all be losers. I still have a little belief that the 5% or so of the British public needed to more than likely swing this election will engage their brains and we won't see a Tory governement for a very long time.

[avfc89]

Can't the North Of England be removed from the south in a political sense. We don't want the Tories in up here.

[tonyh29]

winner ?

Presuming you mean the election then that'll mean we'll all be losers. I still have a little belief that the 5% or so of the British public needed to more than likely swing this election will engage their brains and we won't see a Tory governement for a very long time.

try another look :-)

hint .. look where the word CHANGE should be

[tonyh29]

We don't want the Tories in up here

and we don't want you grubby northerners with your flat beer and coal in the bath

so deal ..

Joke by the way before anyone gets on their high horse

[Gringo]

Can't the North Of England be removed from the south in a political sense. We don't want the Tories in up here.

Which in a way points back to thedon's post on EU countries economies moving at different paces and a need for different policies. Scotland, Wales, northern England and the south all have different requirements but are governed as one.

It's just an economic union that’s passed its sell-by date