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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Survation poll on Heywood and Middleton has a comfortable L

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  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,700

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Someone posted here earlier that we currently run a balance of payments deficit of 90 billion a year. That should have us running for the hills in terror.

    That was me.

    Here's a crossover to consider - will the BoP deficit go over £100bn before the government deficit falls below £100bn ?

    The BoP SHOULD have us running for the hills in terror but it wont.

    It's a commonplace saying that the NHS is the nearest thing the British people have to a religion.

    It isn't.

    The true religion of the British people is the belief in the magic money tree.
    I totally agree. And sadly it's a belief that is fostered by those in power. People bang on about the dangers of the gadflies, cranks, loonies etc. getting into power, but they simply do not appreciate the danger of politicians who either don't care about British interests, or who are actively stoking the engines toward insolvency, IMF-ville, bail out, and permanent surrender of sovereignty a la Greece. Politicians who are remarkably effective and professional would be ideal, but politicians who are actually on our side would be a start.

    People do not see even in recent years what we've lost. Even in the late 90's we made huge amounts from Music, with EMI a world beating record company. All swallowed up by the Americans now. Takeover of EMI by Universal could have been stopped by existing competition laws, but our Government chose to override them.
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,935
    GP question SC and GS havent a clue.

    Woman who knows about NHS make them both look ridiculous
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    Plato said:

    Initially Stella Creasey seemed pretty on the ball, for whatever reason - she's become an ego on legs. Her behaviour on Twitter is often really off-putting, very smug and rude [she thought I was a man and golly...]

    Her involvement in the smugfest that was TwitterSilence when she couldn't even stay off it for 24hrs despite exhorting her support just convinced me that she's swallowed her own PR and is still drunk on it.

    Danny565 said:

    Stella Creasy is so effing irritating. God help Labour if this is the future.

    Just another smug middle class Labour MP who is in no way representative of their core vote. Which is why they are all deserting the sinking ship.
    She looks OK :)
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,935
    Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 3m3 minutes ago
    Westoe (South Tyneside) result:
    UKIP - 40.9% (+40.9)
    LAB - 37.9% (+2.2)
    CON - 13.3% (+1.6)
    GRN - 5.5% (-0.4)
    LDEM - 2.5% (-0.2)
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    That's me for tonite too.

    Been interesting. Next Thursday promises to be loads of fun too.

    Nite everybody and thanx for your company.
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    MikeK said:

    Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 20s21 seconds ago
    Westoe (South Tyneside) result:
    UKIP - 40.9% (+40.9)
    LAB - 37.9% (+2.2)
    CON - 13.3% (+1.6)
    LDEM - 2.5% (-0.2)
    GRN - 5.5% (-0.4)

    That's amazing, that looks as if almost everyone's a winner!
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    MikeKMikeK Posts: 9,053
    Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 4m4 minutes ago
    Westoe (South Tyneside) vote result:
    UKIP - 676
    LAB - 625
    CON - 219
    GRN - 90
    LDEM - 41
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    SimonStClareSimonStClare Posts: 7,976
    edited October 2014

    The most interesting thing today was BenM's tirade against EdM.

    A PM EdM will make Francois Hollande look respected and popular in comparison.

    What do they teach on that Oxford PPE course ?

    PPE? - Ed dropped philosophy in his second year, so only got a 2:1 Bachelor of Arts degree.
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    GeoffMGeoffM Posts: 6,071

    GeoffM said:

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Why not use the redundant facility to quietly move civil service functions from Scotland to England? It'd save us a couple of things to worry about come the next IndyRef.

    Thanks for getting on board -interesting suggestion, but I don't think there will be another one. Certainly they won't allow one for another 18 years or so. Switching the jobs would cause unemployment in Scotland, which for the time being would still negatively affect the wider economy and tax base.

    Lack of support for Britain by the Government in terms of its own economic activity in these desperate economic times amounts to nothing more or less than deliberate betrayal. Planes trains, automobiles, and everything in between is made abroad. This simply has to stop.
    It's only at the likelihood of another IndyRef where we diverge. Your very sensible point about abolishing road tax was done over here years ago ... although we rolled the money raising into general taxation rather than specifically on to fuel duty. Tax simplification is a great thing.

    Similarly, our telly tax was abolished about 5 years ago and also rolled into the general tax/theft pot. Although that was largely done for practical reasons due to widespread non-payment (including by me)
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    PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    EMI's glory days are surely a long time ago. IIRC they were bought about 10yrs ago by a hedgefund who tried to knock some sense into the business that was badly failing to manage its cost base. They failed and stuck it back up for sale.

    It got quite a lot of press at the time. It certainly was a great business once, but the industry has changed so much. Most of the records I have now seem to be a subsid of Sony or Virgin or a rag bag of names I don't recognise much. That may simply be my lack of observation of course.

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Someone posted here earlier that we currently run a balance of payments deficit of 90 billion a year. That should have us running for the hills in terror.

    That was me.

    Here's a crossover to consider - will the BoP deficit go over £100bn before the government deficit falls below £100bn ?

    The BoP SHOULD have us running for the hills in terror but it wont.

    It's a commonplace saying that the NHS is the nearest thing the British people have to a religion.

    It isn't.

    The true religion of the British people is the belief in the magic money tree.
    I totally agree. And sadly it's a belief that is fostered by those in power. People bang on about the dangers of the gadflies, cranks, loonies etc. getting into power, but they simply do not appreciate the danger of politicians who either don't care about British interests, or who are actively stoking the engines toward insolvency, IMF-ville, bail out, and permanent surrender of sovereignty a la Greece. Politicians who are remarkably effective and professional would be ideal, but politicians who are actually on our side would be a start.

    People do not see even in recent years what we've lost. Even in the late 90's we made huge amounts from Music, with EMI a world beating record company. All swallowed up by the Americans now. Takeover of EMI by Universal could have been stopped by existing competition laws, but our Government chose to override them.
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    Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Oh God. I like Harriet Harman, but I think she is the WORST possible choice for a Question Time in Clacton.
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,935
    LD bloke talking a lot of sence on NHS

    Alan Milburn introduced a system ripe for privitisation coalition took that opportunity
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    TheWatcherTheWatcher Posts: 5,262

    One Labour chap has just asked me, should he be worried that Labour are only gaining votes where they already have MPs?

    Yes. Have thought that for a long time. They will gain the most votes where it doesn't matter. Hence the 7% lead in the national polls is bogus.


    Where are you thinking?
    Sorry, didn't explain that very well. I mean Labour will disproportionately put on votes in seats that they already hold, particularly in urban areas, such that the Conservatives won't need the full 2010 GE lead of 7% over Labour to win. This is in contrast to Blair, who was highly efficient with his votes in marginal seats.

    I expect Cameron will turn out to be surprisingly efficient too.
    I'm not sure Labour will do that well with their own seats. Remember one of Ed's biggest problems is he doesn't even convince all his own supporters. Many may stay at home.
    Doubtful I think Ed is indeed pretty Crap but in a close election lots of LAB voters will be extremely keen to stick with LAB to try to get rid of the Tories.
    You missed Tyson's comment this afternoon. He, a Labour voter was going to lend the Tories his vote to ensure that Milband didn't win, and that Labour survived in the long term.

    Even BenM's had enough.
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    I've got writer's block

    RUN MY THREAD!
    Cas - Do the words "floor", "room" and "cutting" spring to mind?

    Fret not, it's happened to the best of us.

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    The most interesting thing today was BenM's tirade against EdM.

    A PM EdM will make Francois Hollande look respected and popular in comparison.

    What do they teach on that Oxford PPE course ?

    PPE? - Ed dropped philosophy in his second year, so only got a 2:1 Bachelor of Arts degree.
    Considering he's pretty crap at politics and knows feck all about economics what does that say about his ability in philosophy ?
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    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,935

    One Labour chap has just asked me, should he be worried that Labour are only gaining votes where they already have MPs?

    Yes. Have thought that for a long time. They will gain the most votes where it doesn't matter. Hence the 7% lead in the national polls is bogus.


    Where are you thinking?
    Sorry, didn't explain that very well. I mean Labour will disproportionately put on votes in seats that they already hold, particularly in urban areas, such that the Conservatives won't need the full 2010 GE lead of 7% over Labour to win. This is in contrast to Blair, who was highly efficient with his votes in marginal seats.

    I expect Cameron will turn out to be surprisingly efficient too.
    I'm not sure Labour will do that well with their own seats. Remember one of Ed's biggest problems is he doesn't even convince all his own supporters. Many may stay at home.
    Doubtful I think Ed is indeed pretty Crap but in a close election lots of LAB voters will be extremely keen to stick with LAB to try to get rid of the Tories.
    You missed Tyson's comment this afternoon. He, a Labour voter was going to lend the Tories his vote to ensure that Milband didn't win, and that Labour survived in the long term.

    Even BenM's had enough.
    My money is still on PM Ed but we will see
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    PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    I liked Margaret Hodge myself - she was always pretty good on QT. Hattie gets props from me for going out to bat no matter how bad the weather is.

    Patricia Hewitt was the worst by miles. She could patronise for Britain.
    Danny565 said:

    Oh God. I like Harriet Harman, but I think she is the WORST possible choice for a Question Time in Clacton.

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    fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279
    I am so fed up with those that claim we need to do more to get non voters engaged, and its somehow all the fault of politicians that folk cannot be ar*sed to get off their backsides and vote once every 4/5 years. Why the hell should they get away with blaming our current crop of politicians for their laziness, far less be rewarded at the expense of the many millions of Brits who not only engage in the GE debate, but also more importantly turned up to vote at a GE?! Rant over. :)
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    FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Someone posted here earlier that we currently run a balance of payments deficit of 90 billion a year. That should have us running for the hills in terror.

    Well the ONS says of 2013 ''In 2013, the UK’s current account deficit was £71.1 billion.'' I'm not sure but other reports suggest it may have been recast a bit lower.

    However that is not the 'trade deficit', the.... ''Current Account is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). ''
    So our 'trade deficit' is lower than this.
    However the other side of this coin is that the sums paid out for goods come back as inward investment. The 'balance' must balance and our deficit on trade is paid for by a surplus on financial flows.
    As a small wealthy country is it a surprise that we cannot produce at home all we would like - ie mobile phones, cheap clothes? We may well be producing in absolute standards as much if more more than ever before but the more we spend ourselvesonn ourselves then the more we must import.

    I dont agree with abolishing VED since many parts of the country need to use cars more than others. You may not care but it would have a disproportionate affect on many people. Then there is the transport of goods costs



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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    Plato said:

    Initially Stella Creasey seemed pretty on the ball, for whatever reason - she's become an ego on legs. Her behaviour on Twitter is often really off-putting, very smug and rude [she thought I was a man and golly...]

    Her involvement in the smugfest that was TwitterSilence when she couldn't even stay off it for 24hrs despite exhorting her support just convinced me that she's swallowed her own PR and is still drunk on it.

    Danny565 said:

    Stella Creasy is so effing irritating. God help Labour if this is the future.

    Just another smug middle class Labour MP who is in no way representative of their core vote. Which is why they are all deserting the sinking ship.
    She looks OK :)
    Not quite Liz Kendall though ;-)
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    TheWatcherTheWatcher Posts: 5,262

    Trident really is absurd. I could understand an independent nuclear deterrent, but it isn't.

    Excluding the submarines, warheads, crews, command and control, British operated early warning etc, then yes you're right. The missiles are leased, and err that's it.
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    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,161
    Speedy said:

    Lets make a scenario:
    On electoral calculus with this poll we have LAB 316, CON 296, LD 11, SNP 6, PC 3.
    Practically the LD are going to hold an extra 10 seats from the Tories and UKIP are probably going to elect 10 MP's too all of them from the Tories, also the SNP is going to gain a few LD and Labour seats lets say 3 from each , so the eventual number would be LAB 313, CON 276, LD 18, SNP 12, UKIP 10, PC 3.

    Now lets try to form a long term stable coalition with these numbers.

    That's easy, a Lab-Con coalition would have no more internal disagreement than the current Con-Lib one, and a majority of 263.
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    SimonStClareSimonStClare Posts: 7,976

    The most interesting thing today was BenM's tirade against EdM.

    A PM EdM will make Francois Hollande look respected and popular in comparison.

    What do they teach on that Oxford PPE course ?

    PPE? - Ed dropped philosophy in his second year, so only got a 2:1 Bachelor of Arts degree.
    Considering he's pretty crap at politics and knows feck all about economics what does that say about his ability in philosophy ?
    Not a lot I guess – but on a plus side, he’s very good at choosing the family Christmas card.
  • Options
    GeoffMGeoffM Posts: 6,071

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Someone posted here earlier that we currently run a balance of payments deficit of 90 billion a year. That should have us running for the hills in terror.

    That was me.

    Here's a crossover to consider - will the BoP deficit go over £100bn before the government deficit falls below £100bn ?

    The BoP SHOULD have us running for the hills in terror but it wont.

    It's a commonplace saying that the NHS is the nearest thing the British people have to a religion.

    It isn't.

    The true religion of the British people is the belief in the magic money tree.
    I totally agree. And sadly it's a belief that is fostered by those in power. People bang on about the dangers of the gadflies, cranks, loonies etc. getting into power, but they simply do not appreciate the danger of politicians who either don't care about British interests, or who are actively stoking the engines toward insolvency, IMF-ville, bail out, and permanent surrender of sovereignty a la Greece. Politicians who are remarkably effective and professional would be ideal, but politicians who are actually on our side would be a start.

    People do not see even in recent years what we've lost. Even in the late 90's we made huge amounts from Music, with EMI a world beating record company. All swallowed up by the Americans now. Takeover of EMI by Universal could have been stopped by existing competition laws, but our Government chose to override them.
    Technology is dooming the old ways of doing business in the music industry. Using anti-competition laws etc to try to turn back the tide might buy the old giant dinosaurs a few more years.

    Rather like the way a dwindling number of people still get their news printed on paper or still send their emails using a "post box" with a "stamp" on we'll see that the Americans you speak of have wasted their money.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,700
    Plato said:

    EMI's glory days are surely a long time ago. IIRC they were bought about 10yrs ago by a hedgefund who tried to knock some sense into the business that was badly failing to manage its cost base. They failed and stuck it back up for sale.

    It got quite a lot of press at the time. It certainly was a great business once, but the industry has changed so much. Most of the records I have now seem to be a subsid of Sony or Virgin or a rag bag of names I don't recognise much. That may simply be my lack of observation of course.

    You're quite right, though even to the last, they had big artists like Katie Perry and Coldplay on their roster. The decline of the company has been long in coming, but it doesn't make the loss any less. It's not just record sales (which account for very little these days), it's the performing rights from their vast catalogue, that now obviously all goes elsewhere.

    That rag bag of names that you see on records will be subsidiaries of Universal, Sony, or Warners, who are pretty much the only swollen conglomerates left in the game, having devoured the rest. Two American companies, one nominally Japanese -a tiny cadre of US corporations controlling pop culture -not healthy culturally, and for this country not healthy economically either.

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    Considering he's pretty crap at politics and knows feck all about economics what does that say about his ability in philosophy ?

    Now that's unfair. Ed would have made a perfectly serviceable junior lecturer in politics at a minor university.
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    foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    GP question SC and GS havent a clue.

    Woman who knows about NHS make them both look ridiculous

    Quite right. An extra 8 000 GPs in a few years just does not add up.

    One of my GP colleagues with a head for sums does the maths here:

    http://northern-doc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/fools-and-their-ideas-are-soon-parted.html
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139
    fitalass said:

    I am so fed up with those that claim we need to do more to get non voters engaged, and its somehow all the fault of politicians that folk cannot be ar*sed to get off their backsides and vote once every 4/5 years. Why the hell should they get away with blaming our current crop of politicians for their laziness, far less be rewarded at the expense of the many millions of Brits who not only engage in the GE debate, but also more importantly turned up to vote at a GE?! Rant over. :)

    I'm not quite at rant level, but part of me thinks the same thing sometimes. The thing is, politicians really do try to engage as many people as possible - every person engaged is a possible voter - but not much seems to work. Hell, even the IndyRef couldn't get some people engaged. I'm at a loss at what more could be done. I'm sure people talk about distant westminster being a part of it, but even fewer people vote for their local politicians, so that cannot be that big a part of it, and voters punish the politicians who don't conform to the styles of the leadership classes (or at least those that don't, who are better at engaging, may be able to win one seat but seem to get less benefit in a national sense).

    And with that, good night.
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    Oliver_PBOliver_PB Posts: 397

    One Labour chap has just asked me, should he be worried that Labour are only gaining votes where they already have MPs?

    It would be worrying for Labour if it were the case, but it doesn't seem to be. Ashcroft's marginal polling suggests that Labour are doing disproportionately well in Lab-Tory marginals, largely thanks to Lib Dem to Labour switchers.

    Voter concentration is a bigger issue for the Conservatives, who are racking up huge majorities in safe seats.
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    One Labour chap has just asked me, should he be worried that Labour are only gaining votes where they already have MPs?

    Yes. Have thought that for a long time. They will gain the most votes where it doesn't matter. Hence the 7% lead in the national polls is bogus.


    Where are you thinking?
    Sorry, didn't explain that very well. I mean Labour will disproportionately put on votes in seats that they already hold, particularly in urban areas, such that the Conservatives won't need the full 2010 GE lead of 7% over Labour to win. This is in contrast to Blair, who was highly efficient with his votes in marginal seats.

    I expect Cameron will turn out to be surprisingly efficient too.
    I'm not sure Labour will do that well with their own seats. Remember one of Ed's biggest problems is he doesn't even convince all his own supporters. Many may stay at home.
    Doubtful I think Ed is indeed pretty Crap but in a close election lots of LAB voters will be extremely keen to stick with LAB to try to get rid of the Tories.
    You missed Tyson's comment this afternoon. He, a Labour voter was going to lend the Tories his vote to ensure that Milband didn't win, and that Labour survived in the long term.

    Even BenM's had enough.
    I thought Tyson lived in Tuscany now ?

    And didn't he previously live in the Oxford West constituency and had never voted Labour but always LibDem ?
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    FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012
    fitalass said:

    I am so fed up with those that claim we need to do more to get non voters engaged, and its somehow all the fault of politicians that folk cannot be ar*sed to get off their backsides and vote once every 4/5 years. Why the hell should they get away with blaming our current crop of politicians for their laziness, far less be rewarded at the expense of the many millions of Brits who not only engage in the GE debate, but also more importantly turned up to vote at a GE?! Rant over. :)

    When this was discussed re the indyref it was suggested it was impossible to get more than 90% turn out because it was inevitable the electoral roll would be out of date. As I recall the turn out was about 85% - which we should remember for the survival of your country.
    So really anything above 70-75% does not seem too bad to me for a general election.

  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,139

    Speedy said:

    Lets make a scenario:
    On electoral calculus with this poll we have LAB 316, CON 296, LD 11, SNP 6, PC 3.
    Practically the LD are going to hold an extra 10 seats from the Tories and UKIP are probably going to elect 10 MP's too all of them from the Tories, also the SNP is going to gain a few LD and Labour seats lets say 3 from each , so the eventual number would be LAB 313, CON 276, LD 18, SNP 12, UKIP 10, PC 3.

    Now lets try to form a long term stable coalition with these numbers.

    That's easy, a Lab-Con coalition would have no more internal disagreement than the current Con-Lib one, and a majority of 263.
    Now now, that's not true - even if one accepts the idea that ideologically and practically Labour and the Tories could conceivably do that, their defining aspects now are in opposition to the other one (at least nationally). So they could never work in a government together even if on every important issue there was no disagreement, as they would define their smaller differences as massive,
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    Plato said:

    Initially Stella Creasey seemed pretty on the ball, for whatever reason - she's become an ego on legs. Her behaviour on Twitter is often really off-putting, very smug and rude [she thought I was a man and golly...]

    Her involvement in the smugfest that was TwitterSilence when she couldn't even stay off it for 24hrs despite exhorting her support just convinced me that she's swallowed her own PR and is still drunk on it.

    Danny565 said:

    Stella Creasy is so effing irritating. God help Labour if this is the future.

    Just another smug middle class Labour MP who is in no way representative of their core vote. Which is why they are all deserting the sinking ship.
    She looks OK :)
    Not quite Liz Kendall though ;-)
    Or Rachel :)
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,700

    Here's one of my 'cuts' -I floated this yesterday but no-one took me up (I'll stop soon).

    Abolish vehicle excise duty.
    Add it on to fuel duty.
    Use the redundant facility for administering VED to repatriate all the administrative jobs that are currently being done in India for the nationalised banks.
    Thus saving money now, and going forward. Saving people's time and effort. And not losing any jobs.

    Someone posted here earlier that we currently run a balance of payments deficit of 90 billion a year. That should have us running for the hills in terror.

    Well the ONS says of 2013 ''In 2013, the UK’s current account deficit was £71.1 billion.'' I'm not sure but other reports suggest it may have been recast a bit lower.

    However that is not the 'trade deficit', the.... ''Current Account is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). ''
    So our 'trade deficit' is lower than this.
    However the other side of this coin is that the sums paid out for goods come back as inward investment. The 'balance' must balance and our deficit on trade is paid for by a surplus on financial flows.
    As a small wealthy country is it a surprise that we cannot produce at home all we would like - ie mobile phones, cheap clothes? We may well be producing in absolute standards as much if more more than ever before but the more we spend ourselvesonn ourselves then the more we must import.

    I dont agree with abolishing VED since many parts of the country need to use cars more than others. You may not care but it would have a disproportionate affect on many people. Then there is the transport of goods costs


    I don't understand what you mean about financial flows. I would like further clarification, but I may have to read it tomorrow as bed is calling!

    And I don't understand how abolishing VED would be unfair. Heavy car users would pay more, but heavy car users use the roads more, which is nominally (I realise not in actuality) what this tax is designed to pay for. Our whole system is geared to trying to make people use their cars less, so why suddenly pull back on this in this instance?
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    One Labour chap has just asked me, should he be worried that Labour are only gaining votes where they already have MPs?

    Yes. Have thought that for a long time. They will gain the most votes where it doesn't matter. Hence the 7% lead in the national polls is bogus.


    Where are you thinking?
    Sorry, didn't explain that very well. I mean Labour will disproportionately put on votes in seats that they already hold, particularly in urban areas, such that the Conservatives won't need the full 2010 GE lead of 7% over Labour to win. This is in contrast to Blair, who was highly efficient with his votes in marginal seats.

    I expect Cameron will turn out to be surprisingly efficient too.
    I'm not sure Labour will do that well with their own seats. Remember one of Ed's biggest problems is he doesn't even convince all his own supporters. Many may stay at home.
    Doubtful I think Ed is indeed pretty Crap but in a close election lots of LAB voters will be extremely keen to stick with LAB to try to get rid of the Tories.
    You missed Tyson's comment this afternoon. He, a Labour voter was going to lend the Tories his vote to ensure that Milband didn't win, and that Labour survived in the long term.

    Even BenM's had enough.
    My money is still on PM Ed but we will see
    Let's see, iirc that was pretty much all your money wasn't it?
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    MarkSeniorMarkSenior Posts: 4,699
    S Lakeland DC result LD hold LD 416 Con 184 Green 50
    Cumbria CC result LD hold LD 1061 Con 810 Ind 123 Green 61
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    Considering he's pretty crap at politics and knows feck all about economics what does that say about his ability in philosophy ?

    Now that's unfair. Ed would have made a perfectly serviceable junior lecturer in politics at a minor university.
    He might have got appointed but I don't see him as an inspiring lecturer.

    I see him more as sort of student for life, doing ever more postgrad courses whilst living off the family money.
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    FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012

    LD bloke talking a lot of sence on NHS

    Alan Milburn introduced a system ripe for privitisation coalition took that opportunity

    The NHS is not being 'privatised' - and it was Gordon Brown in Labour's 2010 manifesto that promied the provoision of privatly provided services commissioned by and under the NHS.
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    PongPong Posts: 4,693
    Starting to see some serious money appear for UKIP in Rochester on BF.

    I'd suggest people take the 6/5 available at William Hill now before it gets cut.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @suttonnick: Friday's Scotsman front page - "Salmond: 'All poll tax debts to be written off'" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/xGQIILHkbZ
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    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,161
    edited October 2014
    In Politics Is Amazing news:

    Tories announce a pretend tax cut for the rich, which is really mostly just five years of inflation.

    Labour can't say it's not real because that's too complicated, and they can't say it'll be unfunded because the voters think the Tories are deficit hawks, so they won't believe it.

    Instead Labour make up a pretend funding stream for the pretend tax cut, in the form of a VAT rise:
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-chairman-cannot-rule-out-4370193
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    fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279
    As one of the poor sods who not only put themselves on the electoral register from the age of 18, and who then proceeded to pay ALL their taxes as well as turning up to vote.... There are no words to describe my anger at Salmond's latest stunt, I caught his announcement and the appalling weak response of the (SNP) Holyrood Speaker of the House on FM's questions this morning.
    Scott_P said:

    @suttonnick: Friday's Scotsman front page - "Salmond: 'All poll tax debts to be written off'" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/xGQIILHkbZ

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    DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300

    GP question SC and GS havent a clue.

    Woman who knows about NHS make them both look ridiculous

    Quite right. An extra 8 000 GPs in a few years just does not add up.

    One of my GP colleagues with a head for sums does the maths here:

    http://northern-doc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/fools-and-their-ideas-are-soon-parted.html
    Surely the £800M wages figure should be zero, since whatever sort of doctors these graduates become, we'll still be paying them.

    Interesting too that GP courses are not full, which runs contra to recent pb threads about how overpaid and under-worked GPs are. It seems the opposite might be true.
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    DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300

    In Politics Is Amazing news:

    Tories announce a pretend tax cut for the rich, which is really mostly just five years of inflation.

    Labour can't say it's not real because that's too complicated, and they can't say it'll be unfunded because the voters think the Tories are deficit hawks, so they won't believe it.

    Instead Labour make up a pretend funding stream for the pretend tax cut, in the form of a VAT rise:
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-chairman-cannot-rule-out-4370193

    You know, I really can't remember which party started the silly game of pointing to unfunded commitments and "black holes", but it is certainly a game everyone now plays. Will there be a VAT rise? Who knows? But there is one party with a history of increasing VAT after denying any such plans, and it ain't Mebyon Kernow.
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    StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    GP question SC and GS havent a clue.

    Woman who knows about NHS make them both look ridiculous

    Quite right. An extra 8 000 GPs in a few years just does not add up.

    One of my GP colleagues with a head for sums does the maths here:

    http://northern-doc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/fools-and-their-ideas-are-soon-parted.html
    Surely the £800M wages figure should be zero, since whatever sort of doctors these graduates become, we'll still be paying them.
    The article also assumes there's no such thing as immigrant doctors

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    peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,875
    edited October 2014
    Free Money ***** Free Money ***** Free Money

    Back the Tories at 11/8 with SkyBet (with 48.14% of total stake) to win the Rochester and Strood by-election and back UKIP at 6/5 with Hills (51.86% of stake) likewise and make a 14% profit.
    But hurry, this can't last!
    As ever, DYOR.
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    fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,279
    I would call it Ed Miliband's Deficit denial Speech, easily forgotten.

    Can we now refer to Ed Miliband's speech as .......... The Omnishambles Speech?

    antifrank said:
This discussion has been closed.