Bolitics The New Condem Government

[MakemineVanilla]

 

I'm not convinced VT is left wing, I think there are the usual proportion of gobby lefties that love the sound of their own keyboard. There are slightly less outwardly tory types as they know the politics of greed and spite don't read well under analysis. But both sides are probably in single figures. Then there are the vast majority of VT posters that stay well clear of the politics bits.

Yes, that's exactly the reason.

 

You're right in that most of VT probably steer clear of politics but of the ones that do engage with it on here there definitely seems to be a strong bleeding-heart liberal slant. I don't know if there'll be a poll for the general election but it'll be interesting to compare those results to the actual results.

 

 

Fixed!

[kidlewis]

The more I read into politics the less I like the Whips. Yes it's there to give stronger governance and enable UK GVMT to get things done, but has anyone looked at other potential solutions which may work better?

 

Obviously in Italy they do it differently and that's a complete and utter mess. 

 

Swiss have a lot of devolved and regional powers, they love their referendums but again they have flaws in their system. 

 

I think on QI they mentioned the fairest way was just when the greeks did a random ballot and picked people at random, a lottery. 

 

There's also some studies showing if you take the average opinion of enough random people you generally get a consensus (all maths and theoretical ramblings). 

 

On that basis it could be a national lottery to pick 500+ people to be politicians could be the fairest and best way of governance. 

 

 

 

Both Tory and Labour (and politics in general) need a bit of a massive cull in their respective parties, both have utter idiots in them. 

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

The more I read into politics the less I like the Whips.

 

I'm quite keen but it depends on who dealing out the punishment & whether or not they mix it up with a bit of light flogging.

[Jon]

The more I read into politics the less I like the Whips.

I'm quite keen but it depends on who dealing out the punishment & whether or not they mix it up with a bit of light flogging.

It's the tories for you then ced. They're all for flogging the poor, down on their luck, disabled, jobless. It's not even light flogging either. ;-)

[villaajax]

 

 

The more I read into politics the less I like the Whips.

I'm quite keen but it depends on who dealing out the punishment & whether or not they mix it up with a bit of light flogging.

It's the tories for you then ced. They're all for flogging the poor, down on their luck, disabled, jobless. It's not even light flogging either. ;-)

 

 

Always suspected he was.

[villaajax]

So are the Lib Dems going to raise taxes or cut them? They don't seem sure themselves.

 

One day they're saying taxes must rise, the next they will cut them in 2016.

 

[bickster]

They'll do whatever the party with the most seats wants them to do, in exchange for some cabinet positions with better pay #politicalwhores

[MakemineVanilla]

The UK electorate has a deep schizoid attitude towards taxation. It claims to worships that sacred cow the NHS, which they expect to offer every elective procedure and option, private medicine could dream of, but don't want to pay for it. It piously claims that it wants to end poverty, and the housing shortage but it doesn't want to pay for it. It does a lot of hand-wringing about the misery and suffering inflicted on old people because care services are inadequate but it doesn't want to pay for that either.

 

This something-for-nothing mentality leads to disastrous policies like PPP and massive public borrowing, both of which are ultimately just Wonga for public projects: they cost a lot more in the long run and only sustain the electorate's delusion that deferred taxation is not really taxation at all.

 

The UK has the lowest tax take amongst the leading countries of the EC, and I think it shows when public services and the state infrastructures are compared.

 

There is no premium from the UK's lower taxes because the UK's GDP is still lower than its tax and spend rivals: there has been no economic miracle, only lower standards and increasing social and economic inequality.

 

Taxation as a proportion of GDP figures:

 

UK 39%

France 44.6%

Germany 40.6%

Netherlands 39.8%

Sweden 45.8%

Norway 43.6%

Belgium 46.8%

Italy 42.6%

 

So whether a party sees its main aim as paying down the country's debts or improving its social provision, they need to increase taxation, and get the electorate used to actually paying for what they say they need.

 

The questions remains as to whether the electorate are too daft to accept the reality (likely) and whether there is a single party brave enough to make it a policy (unlikely).

[chrisp65]

it's summed up by the Chancellor being able to give the following speech:

 

'we are currently job half done on the deficit, we still need to make stringent cuts, we cannot afford to be paying benefits or funding state run stuff. We need to cut the budgets of most departments by 30%.

In addition, we aim to give everyone a free fiver by the year 2018* conditions apply.'

 

To which, a huge chunk of the voting electorate hear and base their voting intentions on:

 

'......a free fiver....'

[Awol]

I can't understand why any of them want to get elected tbh. UK is still running an annual deficit of 100 billion a year, with total debt well north of 1 trillion quid.

Forgetting the debt for a moment, the sort of cuts needed just to address the deficit would probably cause a revolution and no party could get elected by outlining honest policies to deal with it.

The situation is just as bad in many other developed countries and I don't see how it can ever be addressed without a spectacular international default/reset, which in itself would crash the entire global system.

People need to start thinking the unthinkable now, but what is certain (IMO) is no one in politics currently has a clue what to do about it.

[MakemineVanilla]

I can't understand why any of them want to get elected tbh. UK is still running an annual deficit of 100 billion a year, with total debt well north of 1 trillion quid.

Forgetting the debt for a moment, the sort of cuts needed just to address the deficit would probably cause a revolution and no party could get elected by outlining honest policies to deal with it.

The situation is just as bad in many other developed countries and I don't see how it can ever be addressed without a spectacular international default/reset, which in itself would crash the entire global system.

People need to start thinking the unthinkable now, but what is certain (IMO) is no one in politics currently has a clue what to do about it.

 

I thought the solution was to debase currencies to such an extent that debts are reduced in real terms and GDPs appear bigger as they are measured in increasing numbers of devalued units (dollars), so eventually the debts look less but in fact the bond-holders have just been cheated.

 

I assume the main reason the Germans have resisted QE is that they are bond-holders for other countries' debt and do not want those debts to be diluted.

Edited October 8, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[chrisp65]

it all makes us look a bit two faced when you see the agony we've put many a third world country through to honour their debts

 

but yes, agree with the above, an honest conversation simply isn't going to get anyone elected unless that conversation is to say we have huge debts and we're basically going to service them long enough for it to turn into the next generations' problem

 

a bit like nuclear waste and carbon

 

we're essentially a bunch of shits

[Awol]

The reason default is so unthinkable is to prop up those same western banks that have held the feet of the 3rd world (and more recently weaker euro zone countries) to the fire. If they go down they take the western and global economies with them.

All that matters then is the ownership of physical assets and resources, of which the less developed nations have rather more...

[TrentVilla]

The UK electorate has a deep schizoid attitude towards taxation. It claims to worships that sacred cow the NHS, which they expect to offer every elective procedure and option, private medicine could dream of, but don't want to pay for it. It piously claims that it wants to end poverty, and the housing shortage but it doesn't want to pay for it. It does a lot of hand-wringing about the misery and suffering inflicted on old people because care services are inadequate but it doesn't want to pay for that either.

 

This something-for-nothing mentality leads to disastrous policies like PPP and massive public borrowing, both of which are ultimately just Wonga for public projects: they cost a lot more in the long run and only sustain the electorate's delusion that deferred taxation is not really taxation at all.

 

The UK has the lowest tax take amongst the leading countries of the EC, and I think it shows when public services and the state infrastructures are compared.

 

There is no premium from the UK's lower taxes because the UK's GDP is still lower than its tax and spend rivals: there has been no economic miracle, only lower standards and increasing social and economic inequality.

 

Taxation as a proportion of GDP figures:

 

UK 39%

France 44.6%

Germany 40.6%

Netherlands 39.8%

Sweden 45.8%

Norway 43.6%

Belgium 46.8%

Italy 42.6%

 

So whether a party sees its main aim as paying down the country's debts or improving its social provision, they need to increase taxation, and get the electorate used to actually paying for what they say they need.

 

The questions remains as to whether the electorate are too daft to accept the reality (likely) and whether there is a single party brave enough to make it a policy (unlikely).

 

Ah yeah but if it weren't for immigration and benefits.....

 

Just thought I'd add the Daily Mail response

 

I'd be interested to know if those figures include the full scale of taxation or just taxation limited purely to direct income, I rather suspect its the later. We obviously have other taxation such as council tax, VAT and Stamp Duty above and beyond income tax and NI and I can't see that those are factored into the 39%.

 

So while I think in general you have a good point I'm less sure about the numbers.

[TrentVilla]

I can't understand why any of them want to get elected tbh.

 

Personal satisfaction and gratification combined with financial reward, same as it ever was.

[snowychap]

From the OECD data (Revenue Statistics - Comparative tables), for 2012:

UK

Taxes on income, profit and capital gains - 12.6% of GDP.

Total tax revenue - 35.2% of GDP.

Edited October 8, 2014 by snowychap

[lapal_fan]

Just charge EVERYONE 40% and be done with it.

 

More likely to get pay rises

[MakemineVanilla]

 

The UK electorate has a deep schizoid attitude towards taxation. It claims to worships that sacred cow the NHS, which they expect to offer every elective procedure and option, private medicine could dream of, but don't want to pay for it. It piously claims that it wants to end poverty, and the housing shortage but it doesn't want to pay for it. It does a lot of hand-wringing about the misery and suffering inflicted on old people because care services are inadequate but it doesn't want to pay for that either.

 

This something-for-nothing mentality leads to disastrous policies like PPP and massive public borrowing, both of which are ultimately just Wonga for public projects: they cost a lot more in the long run and only sustain the electorate's delusion that deferred taxation is not really taxation at all.

 

The UK has the lowest tax take amongst the leading countries of the EC, and I think it shows when public services and the state infrastructures are compared.

 

There is no premium from the UK's lower taxes because the UK's GDP is still lower than its tax and spend rivals: there has been no economic miracle, only lower standards and increasing social and economic inequality.

 

Taxation as a proportion of GDP figures:

 

UK 39%

France 44.6%

Germany 40.6%

Netherlands 39.8%

Sweden 45.8%

Norway 43.6%

Belgium 46.8%

Italy 42.6%

 

So whether a party sees its main aim as paying down the country's debts or improving its social provision, they need to increase taxation, and get the electorate used to actually paying for what they say they need.

 

The questions remains as to whether the electorate are too daft to accept the reality (likely) and whether there is a single party brave enough to make it a policy (unlikely).

 

Ah yeah but if it weren't for immigration and benefits.....

 

Just thought I'd add the Daily Mail response

 

I'd be interested to know if those figures include the full scale of taxation or just taxation limited purely to direct income, I rather suspect its the later. We obviously have other taxation such as council tax, VAT and Stamp Duty above and beyond income tax and NI and I can't see that those are factored into the 39%.

 

So while I think in general you have a good point I'm less sure about the numbers.

 

 

The numbers come from the index of economic freedom, via the Wiki page "List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP".

[Avfc96]

Douglas Carswell is expected to be voted back in as the Clacton-on-sea MP by around 6,000 votes over the Tories.

 

First MP for UKIP then more than likely, wonder how many they will get at the general election? 10? 20?

[snowychap]

0.

I'm sure Bob Spink claimed to be UKIP for a fair old while (and ignoring the wiki crap, I definitely remember seeing him in debates classed as a UKIP mp -whatever the nonsense about the whip).