General Chat

Prime Minister David Cameron made several pledges if the Conservatives are re-elected during his speech at the party conference, the key points include:

a) Raising the personal tax allowance, the rate at which people start paying tax, to £12,500
b) Raising the threshold for the country's 40% rate of income tax from £41,900 to £50,000
c) Scrapping exclusive zero hours contracts
d) The UK would have the most competitive corporate tax rates in the G20
e) Protecting spending on the NHS for a further five years
f) Scrapping the Human Rights Act

I am so excited by the pledges made this week or should that be confused as I wonder who Bonnie & Clyde (David Cameron & George Osborne) will rob to pay for them ;-)

I am ambivalent about his ambiguous promises. So, it's bread & jam tomorrow.

pie in the sky when we die
( Joe Hill )

modern British politics amounts to a giant financial con whereby the old rob the young blind. It is grotesque.

Was that a pink elephant, or a pig I just saw fly by the window! :-P

This extract from an article in the Financial Times in many ways sums up my view of politicians:-

"The current generation of politicians understand two things: how to attain power and to use the powers of office to retain power. There is very little evidence that they understand how government might be used for the public good, or the underlying mechanics of the economy and society that they are supposed to be governing."


From The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats:-

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Our politicians have developed a soothing public language of deception that is concealing what we call a rotten system.

But who do politicians think they are fooling? Certainly not the likes of learned thread contributors OneFootInTheGrave or RolloTheRed.

I wouldn’t mind voting for one or both of these individuals. So, who is with me?

Dermot - up until 20 years ago I was quite involved in politics, however, after the death of my friend John Smith in 1994, the prodigy of Margaret Thatcher - Tony Blair, took the reigns, and there ended any vision I had of seeing a fairer and more equal society emerging in my lifetime - these days my only interest in politics is trying to sieve the dross from the bits of coal, trouble these days is there is more dross than coal :-(

Since Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, right through to this present day, under political parties of all persuasions, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened and I do not see any political party on the horizon, that would adopt policies that would create a fairer and more equal society in which everyone could share.

On the subject of David Cameron's speech, I think he was wrong for him to mention his late son Ivan's treatment, if I thought for one minute he was sincere and not just out to score political points it might have been OK - alas I think he not only lacks sincerity, he lacks compassion :-(

Onefootinthegrave,,love the pen-name...I am 83 and never voted Labour but if John Smith had been able to carry on he would have my vote...I believed and admired him...LES....

Since the current government came to power the poorest in our society have shouldered the brunt of the savage cuts to out of work and in work benefits, many of these people are on the minimum wage, many others have had any wage increase limited to 1% - that's if they were one of the lucky ones.

So, on Monday the Chancellor George Osborne announced, in his speech to the Tory Party Conference, a further squeeze on benefits, including a freeze on welfare benefits for people in work, until 2017. He said this was part of a package of cuts totalling £25 billion, that would save £3 billion and he hinted that working people would shoulder most of the burden.

Then, on Wednesday the Prime Minister in his speech to the conference pledged to increase the threshold at which people start paying tax to £12,500 and to increase the threshold for the 40% rate of income tax from £41,900 to £50,000, it is estimated these changes will cost about £7.2 billion.

Seems to me that the Chancellor is promising bread & dripping and the Prime Minister is promising bread & butter with jam on it :-S

I have no doubt, that over the next seven months, we will see many more tasty bites, from politicians of all persuasions, to lure us into the tangled webs they will be weaving in the run up to the general election ;-)

'The poor man, face to face with wealth, becomes conscious of his poverty, broods over his unrewarded merits, and dreams of perfect states'.

*From William Durant (1885-1981) in his book covering 'The Life of Greece' - part of his magnificent 'Story of Civilisation'.

Oooh ooooh - I won't post the link, as there are rude words in it, but to hear Cameron speaking the truth, go to Youtube and watch
'Cassetteboy - Cameron's Conference Rap'.

WARNING - THIS CONTAINS RUDE WORDS AND SWEARING!!!!

......but then. it's Cameron :-D

maggiewinchester - that was hilarious :-D

This is how the Gov help the young. imho not
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/10/03/624217/

Before the last election the Tories promised a massive change in the threshold for inheritance tax. It didnt happen and now a govt whose deficit reduction plans have gone pear shaped cannot honour the 2010 promise.

Unfazed by this Dave promises to restore the 40p tax rate to where it was in 2010. At the same time the brilliant-in-all areas NHS is to have its budget ring fence preserved. It must come as quite a surprise to those who work in or depend on the NHS that their budgets are protected.

Even if, say, what little is left of the RAF were to be shut down the numbers don't remotely add up. Yet Labour are criticised for saying the obvious, that after 4 years of Osbourne the economy is a wreck. The "growth" is a debt fuelled housing bubble. The truth lies in the massive shortfall in tax receipts.

Was it Marx who said if you are going to tell a lie tell a big one?

TheBlackKnight - is it any wonder that many young people today are disillusioned :-(

If Cameron keeps his promises, personally I don't think he will as he is both a master of the art of smoke & mirror politics and he a master in the art of escapology - judging by some of his performances I think he must have taken lessons from Harry Houdini ;-)

Worth noting the silence from the Tory Party Chairman Grant Shapps, when asked how the tax cuts would be paid for, he refused to be drawn on the issue and he declined to comment on whether or not VAT would be increased to pay for them - silence can speak a thousand words ;-)

It's all very well people making sarcy jibes but, seriously, what would you do if you were in government to change things for the better?

Bear in mind you have no money other than that which you can raise in taxes or borrow. In order for you to raise just £1 billion through taxes, you need to collect just over £15 from every person, man woman and child. To borrow £1 billion at 5% costs you £50 million a year.

Incidentally, all the figures quoted above are a mere drop in the ocean as you are currently faced with the following expenses:-

Old age Pensions - £143 billion
NHS - £127 billion
Welfare - £58 billion
Interest - £47 billion
Defence - £44 billion
Education - £42 billion
Transport - £10 billion
General Government - £9 billion

Plus other expenses of some £65 billion

What I would do if I were in government to change things for the better - would be to create growth by investing in infrastructure that created real growth and real jobs instead of creating growth built on increased house prices, rising rents, increased household ebt and low wages.

We have a massive shortage of housing, available at a price to buy or rent, that ordinary working people can afford - tackling that would be my first priority. That would create jobs in all sectors of the construction industry and would also create jobs by increasing demand for goods & services in all the areas associated with fitting out a house and creating communities.

I certainly would not be spending billions on a high speed rail line nor would I be providing opportunities to property developers, by demolishing social housing schemes then selling the land to those developers for them, to reap rich rewards from building luxury developments, that ordinary working people can only dream of ever owning or renting - you only need to look at what is going on in London, if that was done in any other country it would be called social cleansing.

And yes my politics are such that I would be labelled a socialist and I am proud of that, I am equally proud to have known the man that convinced me that this country could be a fairer and more equal place to live - the late John Smith.

Only a small thing but I would remove the vat exemption from newspapers etc. Once upon a time they were the only way for most people to get news, now there is no excuse for the paper barons to be exempt.