The LDs have more to offer you than a position on Brexit, if you look again.
The problem with this is that the Lib Dems have identified themselves very strongly as the Stop Brexit party.
Every vote for the Lib Dems is going to be seized on and paraded as an expression of diehard support for Remain.
This is similar to the problem Labour voters face, that even if they are voting for their candidate rather than for the candidate's boss, every vote that Labour reap in this election is going to be seen through the prism of "JC got a better share of the vote than Ed, so we're clinging on".
If you want to purge Labour of Corbynism, or if you want to purge the Lib Dems of Eurofederaniansm, then you have to be aware of the signal your vote is sending - and that can be very offputting.
(This is one of the risks that the Lib Dems took by pinning themselves so closely to 48%ism - if it backfires, it's their own fault. I quite often voted Lib Dem in the past, though I came to strongly dislike their pro-EU stance. So long as that was part of a wider package, and my vote was seen in that context rather than flouted as a symbol of support for a particular policy I disapproved of, that was okay. Now it is not. Obviously it would make a difference whether I was in a marginal constituency at time of voting, but as I've often not been then a lot of my votes have been nothing more than signal-sending votes - a situation most voters are familiar with, of course.)
I have no idea why the Tories (if they were really scheming) just didn't publish a manifesto of boring shit about bin collection and other stuff that nobody will really change their vote over. There was / is absolutely no need to propose anything radical.
Then when they got the 100+ manifesto push through the OAP reforms in year 1. All the outcry would have been long forgotten come GE 2022.
If it is not in the manifesto the HOL could have caused chaos with it
One line in the manifesto would have solved that problem: We will reform the House of Lords.
FFS it needs reform anyway.
They do say they will reform it - it is cautious though.
Although comprehensive reform is not a priority we will ensure that the House of Lords continues to fulfl its constitutional role as a revising and scrutinising chamber which respects the primacy of the House of Commons. We have already undertaken reform to allow the retirement of peers and the expulsion of members for poor conduct and will continue to ensure the work of the House of Lords remains relevant and effective by addressing issues such as its size
But 'issues such as its size' leaves the door open to more reform, if they feel they need to, as does the bit on enduring it 'fulfills its constitutional role'.
It probably means something more like parties which are grossly overrepresented won't get to nominate any new peers for a while.
If I was Tim Farron I'd be out there on Sunday with a reheated Labour 2010 social care policy. Dominate the airwaves with the other half of the argument and say "you can't trust Labour but look, you need us in the Commons to moderate these Tory clowns". He could become part of the main narrative - Corbyn has shown no interest in doing so and if Farron gets there first all Labour can say is "me too".
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
Taxes to rise on the young and most workers to prevent those with wealth paying their share of care but can keep £100,000 anyway.
If the DM comments have turned on her then perhaps it really is bad.
Online newspaper comments sections - the worst.
A lot of 'how dare you attack pensioners' comments I see, not considering whether pensioners (or some pensioners) deserve so many of the things they had, and whether it can be afforded, and if other priorities mean perhaps they need to pay more in these areas.
It doesn't matter. It's the perception. People hate this. You can sense it. They could have announced a big commission and then done this six months later, in a better way, but instead they decided to pour manure over the voters, BEFORE the election.
Of course I might easily be wrong, but what if I am right? And this is electorally toxic?
What do they do? How do the Tories row back? It's in the bloody manifesto: there in black and white. Hmm. Grr. Harrumph.
Gin.
They're stuck with it and so need to explain it, and hammer home that at least they have come up with a real solution, not a pie in the sky one. Will that mollify a whole bunch of pensioners and others? Some, probably not most, but that's the only thing they can do.
If the voting public are more sophisticated than children (or political wonks like us), then they should be able to step back, consider this policy in context of the overall offer, and then decide if it is so bad that they must act against it, not merely react to it as being bad.
If this means a 50 seat majority rather than a 100 seat majority, that's fine by me, better governance with a smaller majority. The only danger would be Corbyn surviving, but that might have happened anyway.
Absolutely. From the manifesto:
We trust the people of this country, who know that we face difficult choices – and demand the respect of politicians who should be honest about how those choices can be resolved
That's the message they should be airing more in public.
If the DM comments have turned on her then perhaps it really is bad.
That's another mark in the manifestos favour then.
Honestly, from what I've read so far of the Tory manifesto I'm generally relatively impressed - there are certainly specific policies I disagree with, some very important (Brexit), others less so (fox hunting), but overall better than I was expecting.
There's plenty I do not like about it, and it is not inspiring, there's more specifics in the LD one I would like (though plenty I dislike too), and the Labour one is full of nice stuff, but being relatively more restrained in its promises makes it more appealing to me.
If the DM comments have turned on her then perhaps it really is bad.
The Daily Mail rant threads are probably no more representative of the thinking of the average Tory voter than The Guardian rant threads are representative of the thinking of the average Labour voter.
Most voters do not spend their time venting their spleens on newspaper websites.
I imagine that most of the BTL comments in both come from people who oppose their editorial viewpoints.
If I was Tim Farron I'd be out there on Sunday with a reheated Labour 2010 social care policy. Dominate the airwaves with the other half of the argument and say "you can't trust Labour but look, you need us in the Commons to moderate these Tory clowns". He could become part of the main narrative - Corbyn has shown no interest in doing so and if Farron gets there first all Labour can say is "me too".
Yeah, but they'd block Brexit too. Kills them stone dead.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
I have no idea why the Tories (if they were really scheming) just didn't publish a manifesto of boring shit about bin collection and other stuff that nobody will really change their vote over. There was / is absolutely no need to propose anything radical.
Then when they got the 100+ manifesto push through the OAP reforms in year 1. All the outcry would have been long forgotten come GE 2022.
If it is not in the manifesto the HOL could have caused chaos with it
One line in the manifesto would have solved that problem: We will reform the House of Lords.
FFS it needs reform anyway.
They do say they will reform it - it is cautious though.
Although comprehensive reform is not a priority we will ensure that the House of Lords continues to fulfl its constitutional role as a revising and scrutinising chamber which respects the primacy of the House of Commons. We have already undertaken reform to allow the retirement of peers and the expulsion of members for poor conduct and will continue to ensure the work of the House of Lords remains relevant and effective by addressing issues such as its size
But 'issues such as its size' leaves the door open to more reform, if they feel they need to, as does the bit on enduring it 'fulfills its constitutional role'.
It probably means something more like parties which are grossly overrepresented won't get to nominate any new peers for a while.
It is sufficiently vague to allow for quite a bit, though lacking specificity would allow it to be more easily challenged.
The Conservative's 2017 manifesto launched this morning was dominated by Brexit, social care, education and cyber security but was without the party's intentions on controlling the UK ivory trade. This is in contrast to the 2015 version, which pledged an outright ban on trade in ivory.
Comments from the Mail, Twitter....come on. Seriously. You could get hundreds - possibly thousands - of highly organised Corbynistas in a heartbeat to hi-jack any phone-in or any newspaper message board, and especially Twitter. You can read some of those comments and see that most of them are so obviously non-Tories.
God, three weeks from election day and this level of panic with a comfortable double digit polling lead.
Unreal.
I was mostly playing Devil's Advocate / injecting more panic with the Mail tweet - of course it's unrepresentative, would be like citing The Canary to say Labour are on course for a landslide. I don't think this will change much at the end of the day but we may see a small polling dip - to those that don't look in enough detail, Dementia Tax is a powerful negative branding.
'Dementia Tax' is a powerful negative, but then again, so is 'Terrorist Sympathiser'. The first one is an unfair description, the other is 100% accurate.
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
RIght. I've decided, I'm not voting for the Conservatives if this mad Dementia Tax stays as is.
I(and my siblings) COULD lose hundrends of thousands of pounds of our inheritance. Yes, this decision is based on pure greed, but greed is good. Even if Corbyn by some miracle won and reduced the IHT threshold we would still be better off then what May is planning. I think I'll abstain then voten for this.
RIght. I've decided, I'm not voting for the Conservatives if this mad Dementia Tax stays as is.
I(and my siblings) COULD lose hundrends of thousands of pounds of our inheritance. Yes, this decision is based on pure greed, but greed is good. Even if Corbyn by some miracle won and reduced the IHT threshold we would still be better off then what May is planning. I think I'll abstain then voten for this.
You could lose even more under the current system. My cousins certainly did.
Clown_Car_HQ is right, nunu.
Under the present system, you COULD lose everything down to 27 k before the State pays.
Does the current system include pension funds as assets?
My parents don't have £27k not including the house.
So in about three hours we will find out, inter alia, if the country is going to be destroyed by communism, but, more importantly, if I am a pathetic wobbling meringue of a man, or a peerless political seer.
Yes yes, I know.
Having precipitated a shoal of fish jokes I'm reluctant to quibble with your self-annointed pudding descriptors, but meringue's are tough on the outside and insubstantial once you get in. There must be a more appropriate pudding. Peerless political seer is of course excluded
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
I wouldn't. I hope to leave my heirs something, but I won't make my life worse in order to do so.
I feel similar to you, if there was a Libertarian party candidate in my area I would vote for them. but as there are only 4 I think that is unlikely to help you ether. In the end I will probably vote tory and hope she becomes a bit more liberal over time, but I'm not confidant.
Post election, I perhaps the Lib Dems will simultaneously realize that
1) The need a new and better leader. 2) Banging on about EU does not work and will not as most voters have moved on. 3) There is an opening for a free market/free society liberal party and reoccupy it.
Libertarianism seems doomed in the UK for the time being. The overton window has shifted. And the trouble with the lib dems is that the membership is often as much Labour on holiday as UKIP are Tories on holiday. They'll always be a social democratic rather than libertarian party.
A George-Osborne-led British version of En Marche, anyone? Not impossible if Theresa May's hard brexit goes tits up...
The downfall of economic libertarianism is one of the most interesting consequences of brexit. It has become a completely redundant ideology.
RIght. I've decided, I'm not voting for the Conservatives if this mad Dementia Tax stays as is.
I(and my siblings) COULD lose hundrends of thousands of pounds of our inheritance. Yes, this decision is based on pure greed, but greed is good. Even if Corbyn by some miracle won and reduced the IHT threshold we would still be better off then what May is planning. I think I'll abstain then voten for this.
I have also considered abstaining in this election.
The Tories have shifted uncomfortably to the left. May's vision of the UK is a parochial one, she is at best dull and managerial and at worst censorious and meddling.
Labour present a bright, optimistic vision of the future where everyone is happy and everything is paid for by the magic money tree. It is, of course, a complete lie. Plus, Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser who isn't fit to lead his own party let alone a government.
The lib dems stand for nothing any more other than opposition to Brexit. To vote for them would be to vote against democracy, if such a thing is possible.
I'm not a mad Kipper and couldn't give a toss if immigration is 50 or 500,000, so long as we have control over our own borders and make adequate infrastructure provision and help immigrants to integrate into society.
My main concerns are property prices being too high, small to medium sized businesses and higher rate tax payers being squeezed at the expense of large multinationals and the super rich who appear to pay proportionally far less. Generally I'm for lower taxes and less regulation. I'm also socially liberal and can't abide censorship or the government telling people what they can or can't do with their bodies.
Who do I vote for?
There's no socially liberal, economically dry, patriotic-yet-internationalist party out there.
I don't feel as if the Conservatives should be rewarded with my vote. Corbynism terrifies me.
Abstention feels like my least worst option.
If one is terrified of Corbyn but merely uncomfortable with May, then the least worse option is May.
The LDs have more to offer you than a position on Brexit, if you look again.
The LDs are likely to lose most of their remaining seats. A bicycle will be sufficient transport for Farron and his party (all 1 of them) post the GE.
The Conservative's 2017 manifesto launched this morning was dominated by Brexit, social care, education and cyber security but was without the party's intentions on controlling the UK ivory trade. This is in contrast to the 2015 version, which pledged an outright ban on trade in ivory.
T.May’s manifesto SCRAPS BAN on elephant ivory sales bowing to millionaire antique lobbyists
Fake news. Surely. Screams of Fakery.
There is no mention of ivory in the manifesto. Assuming they would be coded than to refer to it, I'm not sure what section that would be under - free trade? Cannot see a reference that might be an ivory sales bit.
From what I can see, it appears to be that Ivory (or a coded reference) is not mentioned at all in the manifesto, whereas in 2015 there was explicit referral to an outright ban. Sounds more like an oversight than anything, but I believe there was controversy over this last year (we broke our promise to ban it)
May god have mercy on the tories if they propose bringing back hunting and ivory - Britain is a nation of animal lovers to the point of irrationality, I bet less than 10% of the population support ivory.
If I was Tim Farron I'd be out there on Sunday with a reheated Labour 2010 social care policy. Dominate the airwaves with the other half of the argument and say "you can't trust Labour but look, you need us in the Commons to moderate these Tory clowns". He could become part of the main narrative - Corbyn has shown no interest in doing so and if Farron gets there first all Labour can say is "me too".
Yeah, but they'd block Brexit too. Kills them stone dead.
Easy to pivot, even two weeks out. All you say is "who could object to a vote on the final deal". Would be helpful if they identified some EU things they don't like and wouldn't want back, but basically they could just play it down and assume they have those remainers who most care in the bag. They can go back to being "the nice party" and focus on social care and other popular public services. If they were being ultra cheeky they could try and outflank the Tories a bit on free markets too, respondeing to the manifesto.
T.May’s manifesto SCRAPS BAN on elephant ivory sales bowing to millionaire antique lobbyists
Fake news. Surely. Screams of Fakery.
There is no mention of ivory in the manifesto. Assuming they would be coded than to refer to it, I'm not sure what section that would be under - free trade? Cannot see a reference that might be an ivory sales bit.
From what I can see, it appears to be that Ivory (or a coded reference) is not mentioned at all in the manifesto, whereas in 2015 there was explicit referral to an outright ban. Sounds more like an oversight than anything, but I believe there was controversy over this last year (we broke our promise to ban it)
May god have mercy on the tories if they propose bringing back hunting and ivory - Britain is a nation of animal lovers to the point of irrationality, I bet less than 10% of the population support ivory.
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
At what point do Tories start worrying? A single digit poll lead over..... Jeremy Corbyn, and John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott..... would be quite astonishingly poor.
They had a single digit lead mere days before May asked for the GE to be called. Possibly an outlier then, but it was within the range of possibility, clearly. The issue is if it becomes a trend.
If the final outcome was single digits it would indeed be poor. I think that unlikely, although that the LDs are making no headway and even going backwards has to make it more possible now than before.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
Like. It goes against the small c conservative priniple of making sure your children are provided for/looked after.
Anyway, I've been distracted as ever long enough, I have writing to do - I've resolved to try to get back into some fiction writing.
It's a tale of fractious politics in a fantasy setting, and the challenging of a system rigged in favour of cruel elites who oppress the common man, just what the people want.
The LDs are likely to lose most of their remaining seats. A bicycle will be sufficient transport for Farron and his party (all 1 of them) post the GE.
I don't think so - more likely is that they become relevant in a tiny minority of places - tactical voting should help them hold on in most seats and perhaps take a couple more (while losing some - I expect a finish around 10 now) - but their vote share will absolutely crater in other seats - very bad for the long term.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
Not that I am defending the policy, but you misrepresent it. Who is going to force you into care, and why do you think you will not be able to choose for yourself who your carer is? The state doesn't "take everything", it just pays for some of your liability rather than all of it.
Everyone wants to eliminate the deficit but nobody wants to pay. Grim.
It was ever thus. I've always taken a cynical view of taxation: everybody thinks "the rich" should pay more, with their definition of "the rich" being "everybody who earns at least £1 more than I do," and/or "everybody who has a house worth £1 more than my house."
Theresa May has now chosen to test my cynical theory to destruction. In order to get away from the Tories' care reforms, elderly homeowners and their angry heirs alike now have to vote Labour: a party with a very significant negative reputation for incompetence and fiscal incontinence alike. What will they do?
My best guess at the moment is in line with what Mr Meeks has recently written on the subject: the tantrum throwing against the policy is likely to be limited - too many better off voters suspect that they will be voting for economic suicide by backing Labour - and to the extent that people are so outraged and/or mercenary that they decide to switch from Con to Lab in an effort to rescue the blessed inheritances - the switchers are liable to be disproportionately concentrated in Tory safe seats in Southern England, where their little rebellion will be useless.
If the attitudes of that focus group in Bury that I was referencing earlier to free school meals and uni tuition fees is anything to go by, the blowback against the Tory social care proposals in most of the key marginals is likely to be negligible.
If, on the other hand, I am completely wrong and the country is really prepared to vote for Labour's "free pony for every reader" manifesto, then God help us all.
Anyway, I've been distracted as ever long enough, I have writing to do - I've resolved to try to get back into some fiction writing.
It's a tale of fractious politics in a fantasy setting, and the challenging of a system rigged in favour of cruel elites who oppress the common man, just what the people want.
Have you perhaps been inspired by SeanT's contributions on PB.com, his money and his lifestyle?
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
I wouldn't. I hope to leave my heirs something, but I won't make my life worse in order to do so.
It seems to me to be a matter that increases in importance the more you hope to leave behind.
e.g. I have a 1 in 20 chance of developing dementia in my early 60s and being stuck in a care home for many, many years. Is it better to a) take the 1 in 20 chance and end up paying out every penny up til my last 100k, at which point my two children inherit 30k between them and my grandchildren 10k each
Or is it better to b) agree to pay an insurance premium of 5% of my total earnings over the course of my life, so instead of leaving an estate of 500,000 I leave one of 450,000, leaving 150,000 each to both my children and a further 25,000 each to my four grandchildren?
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
At what point do Tories start worrying? A single digit poll lead over..... Jeremy Corbyn, and John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott..... would be quite astonishingly poor.
We've also likely passed peak SCON - SNP likely to hit >45% - SCON cheerleaders now talking >25% being a good result !
If I was Tim Farron I'd be out there on Sunday with a reheated Labour 2010 social care policy. Dominate the airwaves with the other half of the argument and say "you can't trust Labour but look, you need us in the Commons to moderate these Tory clowns". He could become part of the main narrative - Corbyn has shown no interest in doing so and if Farron gets there first all Labour can say is "me too".
Yeah, but they'd block Brexit too. Kills them stone dead.
Easy to pivot, even two weeks out. All you say is "who could object to a vote on the final deal". Would be helpful if they identified some EU things they don't like and wouldn't want back, but basically they could just play it down and assume they have those remainers who most care in the bag. They can go back to being "the nice party" and focus on social care and other popular public services. If they were being ultra cheeky they could try and outflank the Tories a bit on free markets too, respondeing to the manifesto.
They would lose their last vestiges of credibility if they tried that.
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
Hmm... interesting. I remember Jon Stewart mocking Dave when, during the 2010 debates, Dave got highly agitated about Labour's claim that the Tories planned to scrap free bus passes. But Dave was right to nail that lie - the Grey Vote is vastly powerful and must be courted at all costs. Theresa clearly doesn't understand this political rule of iron.
PB Tories still in a whizz. Relax folks, you guys are still going to win, maybe even win big. Corbyn has a good week but he is still crap. Decent Labour manifesto will be trumped by the negative leadership of Corbyn and McDonnell.
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
At what point do Tories start worrying? A single digit poll lead over..... Jeremy Corbyn, and John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott..... would be quite astonishingly poor.
Well, the worst thing they could do is panic. If the polls do narrow into single figures, and that is sustained all through next week, they'll probably tweak the plan or maybe even drop it in its entirety. If they do that, then they lose on the credibility stakes, and plenty of other voters who are not pensioners will notice that too. For example, me, another Tory voter.
Telling people thay have to pay more and lose benefits is damned hard to do, but that doesn't mean it isn't right and it shouldn't be followed through on. What would you prefer - this now, or another betrayal of voter trust in six months time?
The easy thing to do is what Labour are doing, to promise everyone a free lunch, and buggar the medium and long term catastrpohic consequences.
Get real. Corbyn is not going to win the election, not anyway, not anyhow, and not even close.
Anyway, I've been distracted as ever long enough, I have writing to do - I've resolved to try to get back into some fiction writing.
It's a tale of fractious politics in a fantasy setting, and the challenging of a system rigged in favour of cruel elites who oppress the common man, just what the people want.
Have you perhaps been inspired by SeanT's contributions on PB.com, his money and his lifestyle?
I wrote a fantasy 'epic' near 9 years ago now, and have dabbled for my own pleasure since, I just struggle with time. If I ever do make it (and fantasy is a glutted market), I don't think my frail constitution could live quite as intensely as SeanT manages.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
Not that I am defending the policy, but you misrepresent it. Who is going to force you into care, and why do you think you will not be able to choose for yourself who your carer is? The state doesn't "take everything", it just pays for some of your liability rather than all of it.
You may be right, I'm simply representing the "dementia tax" as I understand it.
The small print of the dementia tax may be music to my ears, for all I know (and yes, I understand the present situation could leave me with as little as 23k).
But from my understanding of it the proposed changes sound bad, like my children's inheritance is going to be taken away.
You can argue the fine print all you like, but the only thing that is going to cut through for the vast majority of politically non-engaged middle aged to elderly voters is the two words "dementia tax". For those reasons, whatever the fine print, it looks like an own goal.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
I wouldn't. I hope to leave my heirs something, but I won't make my life worse in order to do so.
It seems to me to be a matter that increases in importance the more you hope to leave behind.
e.g. I have a 1 in 20 chance of developing dementia in my early 60s and being stuck in a care home for many, many years. Is it better to a) take the 1 in 20 chance and end up paying out every penny up til my last 100k, at which point my two children inherit 30k between them and my grandchildren 10k each
Or is it better to b) agree to pay an insurance premium of 5% of my total earnings over the course of my life, so instead of leaving an estate of 500,000 I leave one of 450,000, leaving 150,000 each to both my children and a further 25,000 each to my four grandchildren?
I'd take the insurance bet every time.
Up till now, you'd potentially lose all but £23 k, so you should count your blessings.
One thing's for sure, Dementia Tax (note how the name has already stuck) is the mother of all stealth taxes. For God's sake, the last thing we need are yet more stealth taxes. If needs be increase the rate of income tax, incl the higher rate as was always the case before governments introduced all these smoke and mirror dishonest schemes which we're not supposed to notice, until we move house, die, etc, etc. Enough!
We should not be increasing income taxes so that some people can inherit more.
I would prefer to pay a premium of 5% in higher taxes over the course of my life than be in a situation where I lose my marbles, am forced into care, and the state takes everything, leaving my childen / grandchildren with a pittance between them after the state takes it all away for doubtless inefficient, over-expensive and padded out care subcontracted to private companies.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
Like. It goes against the small c conservative priniple of making sure your children are provided for/looked after.
There is also the "striving" thing - ultimately everyone "knows" (or crosses their fingers and hopes) the state will have to pick up the tab for folk who do not have the assets. How often do you hear better-off pensioners (the ones particularly minded to vote Conservative) complain with variants of "I've worked hard all my life, but now those people who didn't save hard are getting for free the things that I have to pay through my nose for - I'd have been better off not to bother!"
There is a certain logic in feeling hard done by like that. Clearly, if they'd been taxed as they'd gone along instead, they'd have had the higher marginal tax rates to moan about - also a disincentive to strive. But at least it would have been out in the open, rather than a stealth tax; and at least it would have provided greater certainty (the reduction of uncertainty also a small "c" conservative principle) more akin to an insurance premium than to accepting a tail risk (as @rural_voter put it on the last thread).
If the DM comments have turned on her then perhaps it really is bad.
Online newspaper comments sections - the worst.
A lot of 'how dare you attack pensioners' comments I see, not considering whether pensioners (or some pensioners) deserve so many of the things they had, and whether it can be afforded, and if other priorities mean perhaps they need to pay more in these areas.
It doesn't matter. It's the perception. People hate this. You can sense it. They could have announced a big commission and then done this six months later, in a better way, but instead they decided to pour manure over the voters, BEFORE the election.
Of course I might easily be wrong, but what if I am right? And this is electorally toxic?
What do they do? How do the Tories row back? It's in the bloody manifesto: there in black and white. Hmm. Grr. Harrumph.
Gin.
If the voting public are more sophisticated than children (or political wonks like us), then they should be able to step back, consider this policy in context of the overall offer, and then decide if it is so bad that they must act against it, not merely react to it as being bad.
If this means a 50 seat majority rather than a 100 seat majority, that's fine by me, better governance with a smaller majority. The only danger would be Corbyn surviving, but that might have happened anyway.
Absolutely. From the manifesto:
We trust the people of this country, who know that we face difficult choices – and demand the respect of politicians who should be honest about how those choices can be resolved
That's the message they should be airing more in public.
I've no idea who's manifesto this is from!
Let's deconstruct it
We trust the people of this country.... I'm already wanting to kill them. Do WE trust you is the issue.
Who know that we face difficult choices... well yes maybe, but that's what I'm hoping you'll help with!
And demand the respect of politicians - er... We don't care - it's your job to earn our respect.
Who should be honest about how those choices should be resolved - This suggests that the debate that you and I might have is simply secondary to the real debate with grown up people who are called politcians.
Don't really care whose manifesto it is, but it is the most empty of statements.
Edit: So I had no idea when I commented as to who might have spouted this nonsense. I do know now though. What on earth are they thinking!?
The problem with this care proposal is that it is being perceived as inheritance tax.
Got it in one.
Nah, the problem with it is thatit is a shit policy. I rather pay higher National Insurance then this.
You may but why should the young.
Also for many they will not need the care or experience a huge loss of capital. I do get the impression most have not considered the complexity of the issue and why should they. When you are in your md seventies as we are we have been aware that not only could we have to pay down to £23,250 but that we could have our home taken away. I know many who have been in anguish over the present system and at least Theresa May has had the courage to put it on the table, and no one else so far, has come up with a better alternative
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
Hmm... interesting. I remember Jon Stewart mocking Dave when, during the 2010 debates, Dave got highly agitated about Labour's claim that the Tories planned to scrap free bus passes. But Dave was right to nail that lie - the Grey Vote is vastly powerful and must be courted at all costs. Theresa clearly doesn't understand this political rule of iron.
I always got the impression Jon Stewart rather liked Cameron - he praised his PMQs performances (and willingness to return from a trip to be questioned on a specific matter), talked positively of his message in a bit when Cameron won, and some other stuff. Given he usually had John Oliver on for such bits, and Oliver despises Cameron and never missed an opportunity to slag him off, I wonder how much it hurt Oliver to do those bits.
Also, final word, May probably does understand the iron rule - she is just so far ahead with the gray vote, she is trying to take the gamble of reaching out to others and make some difficult choices, without too many of them deserting her.
I think one reason I am so blase about the social care policy is I have no house or savings from either parent to 'look forward to', and so no direct connection to any unfairness of people using their savings to pay for the rainy days to come.
Long-time lurker, but sitting here in western Cardiff I thought I'd join the talk about the Cardiff seats.
Here are the results from this month's council elections for the wards in the relevant constituencies (multi-member constituencies include just the votes for each party's top candidate):
Cardiff Central LD 9643 Lab 8682 Con 4072 PC 1573 Oth 2410
Cardiff West Lab 10490 PC 10470 Con 6846 LD 2613 Oth 1130
Cardiff North Con 14999 Lab 12610 PC 3306 LD 3147 Oth 3971
Cardiff South (NOT including Penarth) Lab 8884 Con 3557 PC 3052 LD 1971 Oth 1806
Obviously there are particular circumstances for local elections - e.g. Plaid focused hugely on West to the detriment of their performance elsewhere. So DYOR!
Thank you and welcome.
Interesting to see those figures for central. Having said that Aberystwyth's students are not likely to be especially politically active anyway, is it different in Cardiff? And if so, might the Liberal Democrats benefit from the fact Cardiff University finishes on the 9th June?
I cast my first ever GE vote as a student in Aberystwyth, 1997.
The way things are going I might have to stay up on election night after all.
Face it Tories, May isn't very good and she has bolloxed up her manifesto.
I'm not saying she won't win with a healthy majority, but she doesn't deserve it.
If she wins a big majority, she clearly hasn't 'bolloxed up' her manifesto.
Corbyn is a very lucky man to be up against her. Can you imagine how far Dave would be winning by under the same circumstances. Not one coherently explained policy since she became PM. Still no clear Brexit vision. Piss poor.
The problem with this care proposal is that it is being perceived as inheritance tax.
Yep, that's exactly how my parents see it. My mum was calling it a 'con', and saying that it gave people no motivation to work hard and save.
But that's no different to now! There are two issues - there's the one about why should those lucky enough not to need care be able to leave a nice inheritance for their kids which bizarrely seems to get right wing Tories in a bit of a state.
Then there's the fact that if you don't accumulate assets/wealth during your lifetime the state will pay for you. My mum keeps reminding us that her uncle in Bolsover ended up in a home and that he was the only one paying as he had a house.
Previously posted but worth reposting in light of today's press reports.
Re Corbyn and the IRA - let's look at now rather than the past.
Corbyn allies himself with anti-Semites at a time when there are increasing attacks on Jews, some of them viciously murderous. He takes money from Press TV, the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, a regime which uses rape as a punishment and hangs gay men from cranes.
This is the leader of a party which claims to be in favour of gay rights, in favour of the rights of women and against racism. It has a leader who either simply does not understand the values he claims to believe in or is cynical about them or who believes that his enemy's enemy is his friend. I believe it to be the last. I think that the hard Left's belief in these values is skin deep and is chiefly used as a weapon against others. Certain victim groups are useful if they can be used to criticise others but can be - and are - dropped as soon as some other more fashionable "victim" group can trump them.
It is what happens when values are chiefly seen as a way of proclaiming one's own virtue and moral superiority rather than as moral imperatives which should determine one's actions.
But whatever the explanation it shows - to me anyway - that Corbyn is not a principled or honest politician, that he has appalling judgment (as he did with the IRA), that he simply cannot be trusted to act in the interests of British citizens and that he is, therefore, unfit to be a leader of a major political party let alone Prime Minister.
As for social care, I find it absurd that people should be incensed at the idea of using their rainy day savings for .... er .....rainy days.
It looks as if Labour wants us all to pay extra tax to fund social care for rich people so that Labour can then tax the inheritances received by the children of those rich people. Amazing how Labour seems to think that the rich should be taxed to pay for all the extra spending Labour has in mind but should not be expected to use their wealth to fund themselves during tough times.
RIght. I've decided, I'm not voting for the Conservatives if this mad Dementia Tax stays as is.
I(and my siblings) COULD lose hundrends of thousands of pounds of our inheritance. Yes, this decision is based on pure greed, but greed is good. Even if Corbyn by some miracle won and reduced the IHT threshold we would still be better off then what May is planning. I think I'll abstain then voten for this.
I have also considered abstaining in this election.
The Tories have shifted uncomfortably to the left. May's vision of the UK is a parochial one, she is at best dull and managerial and at worst censorious and meddling.
Labour present a bright, optimistic vision of the future where everyone is happy and everything is paid for by the magic money tree. It is, of course, a complete lie. Plus, Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser who isn't fit to lead his own party let alone a government.
The lib dems stand for nothing any more other than opposition to Brexit. To vote for them would be to vote against democracy, if such a thing is possible.
I'm not a mad Kipper and couldn't give a toss if immigration is 50 or 500,000, so long as we have control over our own borders and make adequate infrastructure provision and help immigrants to integrate into society.
My main concerns are property prices being too high, small to medium sized businesses and higher rate tax payers being squeezed at the expense of large multinationals and the super rich who appear to pay proportionally far less. Generally I'm for lower taxes and less regulation. I'm also socially liberal and can't abide censorship or the government telling people what they can or can't do with their bodies.
Who do I vote for?
There's no socially liberal, economically dry, patriotic-yet-internationalist party out there.
I don't feel as if the Conservatives should be rewarded with my vote. Corbynism terrifies me.
Abstention feels like my least worst option.
If one is terrified of Corbyn but merely uncomfortable with May, then the least worse option is May.
The LDs have more to offer you than a position on Brexit, if you look again.
Perhaps. But how many people are going to bother to look at what the Liberal Democrats have to say about anything?
(EDIT: and regardless, one of only two parties has any chance of being in power after this election, and the Yellows ain't one of them.)
Not true. Labour doesn't have a chance of being in power either.
The Tories must hope and pray that Boris doesn't blurt out something highly damaging about this care-reform stuff. Boris has got to utterly, completely, absolutely on-message, as the Tories' enemies will be watching like hawks.
Up till now, you'd potentially lose all but £23 k, so you should count your blessings.
Yes, I'm aware of the 23k thing. The thing is, as has been addressed down thread, this looks like an inheritance tax levied on people who are unfortunate enough to get dementia.
It's fundamentally un-Conservative, you could earn a million quid through your own hard work then get early onset dementia and have it all whittled away to nothing over the next twenty or more years. Pooled risk through the taxation system would allow people to keep more of their earnings and this effect is magnified the more you have to protect - in a sense, the "dementia tax" is a regressive one, one that deincentivises work (why turn 65 with a million when you can turn 65 with a hundred thousand, the government will take it off you anyway).
A better system would be pooled risk through higher taxation over the course of your lifetime, meaning everyone risks 5% of their life savings rather than some people see 90% taken away from them. If that's too interventionist there's always the option of having a choice to pay 5% of your income into a fund or else be given a brompton cocktail when your marbles fall out. Personally I'd choose the latter, because once my brain is gone I no longer exist. But the Conservative proposal is genuinely the worst of all possible worlds.
The problem with this care proposal is that it is being perceived as inheritance tax.
Yep, that's exactly how my parents see it. My mum was calling it a 'con', and saying that it gave people no motivation to work hard and save.
But that's no different to now! There are two issues - there's the one about why should those lucky enough not to need care be able to leave a nice inheritance for their kids which bizarrely seems to get right wing Tories in a bit of a state.
Then there's the fact that if you don't accumulate assets/wealth during your lifetime the state will pay for you. My mum keeps reminding us that her uncle in Bolsover ended up in a home and that he was the only one paying as he had a house.
And it is interesting that some of those complaining about this are the same people who argue strongly for a 'meritocracy'. I don't think there's anything especially meritocratic about becoming wealthy from your parents' hard work.
Long-time lurker, but sitting here in western Cardiff I thought I'd join the talk about the Cardiff seats.
Here are the results from this month's council elections for the wards in the relevant constituencies (multi-member constituencies include just the votes for each party's top candidate):
Cardiff Central LD 9643 Lab 8682 Con 4072 PC 1573 Oth 2410
Cardiff West Lab 10490 PC 10470 Con 6846 LD 2613 Oth 1130
Cardiff North Con 14999 Lab 12610 PC 3306 LD 3147 Oth 3971
Cardiff South (NOT including Penarth) Lab 8884 Con 3557 PC 3052 LD 1971 Oth 1806
Obviously there are particular circumstances for local elections - e.g. Plaid focused hugely on West to the detriment of their performance elsewhere. So DYOR!
Thank you and welcome.
Interesting to see those figures for central. Having said that Aberystwyth's students are not likely to be especially politically active anyway, is it different in Cardiff? And if so, might the Liberal Democrats benefit from the fact Cardiff University finishes on the 9th June?
I cast my first ever GE vote as a student in Aberystwyth, 1997.
Where have the last twenty years gone!
It's 16 years since I moved there, and 9 years this month since I left.
The problem with this care proposal is that it is being perceived as inheritance tax.
Yep, that's exactly how my parents see it. My mum was calling it a 'con', and saying that it gave people no motivation to work hard and save.
But that's no different to now! There are two issues - there's the one about why should those lucky enough not to need care be able to leave a nice inheritance for their kids which bizarrely seems to get right wing Tories in a bit of a state.
Then there's the fact that if you don't accumulate assets/wealth during your lifetime the state will pay for you. My mum keeps reminding us that her uncle in Bolsover ended up in a home and that he was the only one paying as he had a house.
The point being that the Tory proposals are not a tax. They are payment for a specific service if you need it. If you don't need that service you don't pay for it. In the case of Inheritance tax it is just that, a tax. It is the state taking money for the sake of it just because they can. In my mind there is a world of difference between the two.
Up till now, you'd potentially lose all but £23 k, so you should count your blessings.
Yes, I'm aware of the 23k thing. The thing is, as has been addressed down thread, this looks like an inheritance tax levied on people who are unfortunate enough to get dementia.
It's fundamentally un-Conservative, you could earn a million quid through your own hard work then get early onset dementia and have it all whittled away to nothing over the next twenty or more years. Pooled risk through the taxation system would allow people to keep more of their earnings and this effect is magnified the more you have to protect - in a sense, the "dementia tax" is a regressive one, one that deincentivises work (why turn 65 with a million when you can turn 65 with a hundred thousand, the government will take it off you anyway).
A better system would be pooled risk through higher taxation over the course of your lifetime, meaning everyone risks 5% of their life savings rather than some people see 90% taken away from them. If that's too interventionist there's always the option of having a choice to pay 5% of your income into a fund or else be given a brompton cocktail when your marbles fall out. Personally I'd choose the latter, because once my brain is gone I no longer exist. But the Conservative proposal is genuinely the worst of all possible worlds.
All your suggestions have been looked into by many including the insurance industry and the subject is just too complex to resolve without pain to some.
Can you even imagine if Theresa May had suggested a 5% care tax what would have happened
As for social care, I find it absurd that people should be incensed at the idea of using their rainy day savings for .... er .....rainy days.
It looks as if Labour wants us all to pay extra tax to fund social care for rich people so that Labour can then tax the inheritances received by the children of those rich people. Amazing how Labour seems to think that the rich should be taxed to pay for all the extra spending Labour has in mind but should not be expected to use their wealth to fund themselves during tough times.
Neither fair nor coherent, really.
Thank you for summing up the Labour position. I've been trying to work out the logic of their position, but that's it in a nutshell. Basically they don't want people spending their hard earned money on themselves.
Previously posted but worth reposting in light of today's press reports.
Re Corbyn and the IRA - let's look at now rather than the past.
Corbyn allies himself with anti-Semites at a time when there are increasing attacks on Jews, some of them viciously murderous. He takes money from Press TV, the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, a regime which uses rape as a punishment and hangs gay men from cranes.
This is the leader of a party which claims to be in favour of gay rights, in favour of the rights of women and against racism. It has a leader who either simply does not understand the values he claims to believe in or is cynical about them or who believes that his enemy's enemy is his friend. I believe it to be the last. I think that the hard Left's belief in these values is skin deep and is chiefly used as a weapon against others. Certain victim groups are useful if they can be used to criticise others but can be - and are - dropped as soon as some other more fashionable "victim" group can trump them.
It is what happens when values are chiefly seen as a way of proclaiming one's own virtue and moral superiority rather than as moral imperatives which should determine one's actions.
But whatever the explanation it shows - to me anyway - that Corbyn is not a principled or honest politician, that he has appalling judgment (as he did with the IRA), that he simply cannot be trusted to act in the interests of British citizens and that he is, therefore, unfit to be a leader of a major political party let alone Prime Minister.
Wasn't he also caught out supporting Paul Eisen after he had denied doing so?
One of the more disturbing things about Corbyn is not just how hypocritical but how dishonest he is - especially given one of the things he claims sets him apart is his integrity!
Will the PB Tories finally admit that TMay is crap? She is politically hapless, dull, wooden and very uninspiring. David Cameron is in a different league to her.
Re the expected post-manifest launch polls, I'd be anticipating a substantial drop in the Tory lead, possibly into single figures.
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
At what point do Tories start worrying? A single digit poll lead over..... Jeremy Corbyn, and John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott..... would be quite astonishingly poor.
They had a single digit lead mere days before May asked for the GE to be called. Possibly an outlier then, but it was within the range of possibility, clearly. The issue is if it becomes a trend.
If the final outcome was single digits it would indeed be poor. I think that unlikely, although that the LDs are making no headway and even going backwards has to make it more possible now than before.
Depends. 42-33 would be poor. 46-37 with a total LD collapse, less so.
The way things are going I might have to stay up on election night after all.
Face it Tories, May isn't very good and she has bolloxed up her manifesto.
I'm not saying she won't win with a healthy majority, but she doesn't deserve it.
So manifesto's have to be crowd pleaser's rather than addressing the difficult problems of the day
The Labour manifesto included policies that will hit Tory voters.
The Conservative manifesto included policies that will hit Tory voters.
That's the difference.
Not sure if you were being ironic or not but there is indeed a difference. The Tories appear to be willing to hit their own supporters because it is the right thing to do to put the necessary changes in place. Labour just want to hit the Tory supporters because they are Tories and because they (Labour) are envious little shits fighting what they perceive as some strange class warfare.
If the Dementia Tax was a Labour policy, would Tories be applauding it?
No, because it would be a Labour policy. The idea in an election is that you ridicule your opponents' policies...
(I hope you will forgive the sarcasm. Your substantive point is of course correct - that they would say it is statism gone mad. The key thing, as SO noted earlier, is that we do need to have a conversation about this and while this may be a strange time and place to start it it has to be done at some point.)
Will the PB Tories finally admit that TMay is crap? She is politically hapless, dull, wooden and very uninspiring. David Cameron is in a different league to her.
Don't forget the fact that she can't stand up straight. Terrible posture .
The problem with this care proposal is that it is being perceived as inheritance tax.
Yep, that's exactly how my parents see it. My mum was calling it a 'con', and saying that it gave people no motivation to work hard and save.
But that's no different to now! There are two issues - there's the one about why should those lucky enough not to need care be able to leave a nice inheritance for their kids which bizarrely seems to get right wing Tories in a bit of a state.
Then there's the fact that if you don't accumulate assets/wealth during your lifetime the state will pay for you. My mum keeps reminding us that her uncle in Bolsover ended up in a home and that he was the only one paying as he had a house.
And it is interesting that some of those complaining about this are the same people who argue strongly for a 'meritocracy'. I don't think there's anything especially meritocratic about becoming wealthy from your parents' hard work.
Aligning policy across care in the family home with that received in a care home is perfectly logical and sensible, much like aligning national insurance contributions between the self employed and employed - but if the public don't like it or can't see it, it matters not.
My guess is that they will stick with the care policy but substantially raise the asset protection level to something closer to quarter of a million, and at least double the existing amount.
While they are at it, they need to clarify the level of the means test for pensioners winter fuel payments.
One week from now they say, 'we've listened, we've changed the levels as a result of your opinion' etc.
Previously posted but worth reposting in light of today's press reports.
Re Corbyn and the IRA - let's look at now rather than the past.
Corbyn allies himself with anti-Semites at a time when there are increasing attacks on Jews, some of them viciously murderous. He takes money from Press TV, the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, a regime which uses rape as a punishment and hangs gay men from cranes.
This is the leader of a party which claims to be in favour of gay rights, in favour of the rights of women and against racism. It has a leader who either simply does not understand the values he claims to believe in or is cynical about them or who believes that his enemy's enemy is his friend. I believe it to be the last. I think that the hard Left's belief in these values is skin deep and is chiefly used as a weapon against others. Certain victim groups are useful if they can be used to criticise others but can be - and are - dropped as soon as some other more fashionable "victim" group can trump them.
It is what happens when values are chiefly seen as a way of proclaiming one's own virtue and moral superiority rather than as moral imperatives which should determine one's actions.
But whatever the explanation it shows - to me anyway - that Corbyn is not a principled or honest politician, that he has appalling judgment (as he did with the IRA), that he simply cannot be trusted to act in the interests of British citizens and that he is, therefore, unfit to be a leader of a major political party let alone Prime Minister.
As for social care, I find it absurd that people should be incensed at the idea of using their rainy day savings for .... er .....rainy days.
It looks as if Labour wants us all to pay extra tax to fund social care for rich people so that Labour can then tax the inheritances received by the children of those rich people. Amazing how Labour seems to think that the rich should be taxed to pay for all the extra spending Labour has in mind but should not be expected to use their wealth to fund themselves during tough times.
Will the PB Tories finally admit that TMay is crap? She is politically hapless, dull, wooden and very uninspiring. David Cameron is in a different league to her.
The way things are going I might have to stay up on election night after all.
Face it Tories, May isn't very good and she has bolloxed up her manifesto.
I'm not saying she won't win with a healthy majority, but she doesn't deserve it.
So manifesto's have to be crowd pleaser's rather than addressing the difficult problems of the day
The Labour manifesto included policies that will hit Tory voters.
The Conservative manifesto included policies that will hit Tory voters.
That's the difference.
No the labour manifesto will hit ALL voters
Desperate spinning Big_G!! But no need to worry yourself - your guys will win (sadly).
Well I hope that at the end of the day, labour rids themselves of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott et al and we see the rise of a proper opposition that is urgently needed, no matter how much a majority TM gains
Comments
Every vote for the Lib Dems is going to be seized on and paraded as an expression of diehard support for Remain.
This is similar to the problem Labour voters face, that even if they are voting for their candidate rather than for the candidate's boss, every vote that Labour reap in this election is going to be seen through the prism of "JC got a better share of the vote than Ed, so we're clinging on".
If you want to purge Labour of Corbynism, or if you want to purge the Lib Dems of Eurofederaniansm, then you have to be aware of the signal your vote is sending - and that can be very offputting.
(This is one of the risks that the Lib Dems took by pinning themselves so closely to 48%ism - if it backfires, it's their own fault. I quite often voted Lib Dem in the past, though I came to strongly dislike their pro-EU stance. So long as that was part of a wider package, and my vote was seen in that context rather than flouted as a symbol of support for a particular policy I disapproved of, that was okay. Now it is not. Obviously it would make a difference whether I was in a marginal constituency at time of voting, but as I've often not been then a lot of my votes have been nothing more than signal-sending votes - a situation most voters are familiar with, of course.)
We trust the people of this country, who know that we face difficult choices – and demand the respect of politicians who should be honest about how those choices can be resolved
That's the message they should be airing more in public.
Heck, I would rather the government said "take out an insurance policy and pay for it yourself, if you don't you're on your own" than that. Though pooled risk through, say, an increase in NI levied on all seems far more measured and reasonable.
https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2017/breaking-news-tory-2017-manifesto-has-no-explicit-mention-of-ivory/
18 May
I've been canvassing this afternoon and the Winter Fuel Allowance policy announcement has gone down like a bucket of cold sick. This is not because people disagree with the policy; it is because people disagree with what they think is the policy (i.e. that it's going to be scrapped).
That, combined with a failure to hit Labour over its own policy launch and, hence, people thinking more about Labour's policies (which are quite popular individually) rather than whether they're credible as a package or whether Corbyn and co could implement them - or whether they're capable of leading the country - has significantly reduced the negatives towards Labour.
CCHQ needs to up its game.
My parents don't have £27k not including the house.
https://twitter.com/tomfarrell50/status/865990056649076737
It has become a completely redundant ideology.
May god have mercy on the tories if they propose bringing back hunting and ivory - Britain is a nation of animal lovers to the point of irrationality, I bet less than 10% of the population support ivory.
If the final outcome was single digits it would indeed be poor. I think that unlikely, although that the LDs are making no headway and even going backwards has to make it more possible now than before.
It's a tale of fractious politics in a fantasy setting, and the challenging of a system rigged in favour of cruel elites who oppress the common man, just what the people want.
Theresa May has now chosen to test my cynical theory to destruction. In order to get away from the Tories' care reforms, elderly homeowners and their angry heirs alike now have to vote Labour: a party with a very significant negative reputation for incompetence and fiscal incontinence alike. What will they do?
My best guess at the moment is in line with what Mr Meeks has recently written on the subject: the tantrum throwing against the policy is likely to be limited - too many better off voters suspect that they will be voting for economic suicide by backing Labour - and to the extent that people are so outraged and/or mercenary that they decide to switch from Con to Lab in an effort to rescue the blessed inheritances - the switchers are liable to be disproportionately concentrated in Tory safe seats in Southern England, where their little rebellion will be useless.
If the attitudes of that focus group in Bury that I was referencing earlier to free school meals and uni tuition fees is anything to go by, the blowback against the Tory social care proposals in most of the key marginals is likely to be negligible.
If, on the other hand, I am completely wrong and the country is really prepared to vote for Labour's "free pony for every reader" manifesto, then God help us all.
e.g. I have a 1 in 20 chance of developing dementia in my early 60s and being stuck in a care home for many, many years. Is it better to a) take the 1 in 20 chance and end up paying out every penny up til my last 100k, at which point my two children inherit 30k between them and my grandchildren 10k each
Or is it better to b) agree to pay an insurance premium of 5% of my total earnings over the course of my life, so instead of leaving an estate of 500,000 I leave one of 450,000, leaving 150,000 each to both my children and a further 25,000 each to my four grandchildren?
I'd take the insurance bet every time.
Telling people thay have to pay more and lose benefits is damned hard to do, but that doesn't mean it isn't right and it shouldn't be followed through on. What would you prefer - this now, or another betrayal of voter trust in six months time?
The easy thing to do is what Labour are doing, to promise everyone a free lunch, and buggar the medium and long term catastrpohic consequences.
Get real. Corbyn is not going to win the election, not anyway, not anyhow, and not even close.
The earnings pledge of "60% of the median" will mean bugger all to most people. Terrible messaging.
The small print of the dementia tax may be music to my ears, for all I know (and yes, I understand the present situation could leave me with as little as 23k).
But from my understanding of it the proposed changes sound bad, like my children's inheritance is going to be taken away.
You can argue the fine print all you like, but the only thing that is going to cut through for the vast majority of politically non-engaged middle aged to elderly voters is the two words "dementia tax". For those reasons, whatever the fine print, it looks like an own goal.
People want the care, but don't want to pay for it. Cake and Eat It.
There is a certain logic in feeling hard done by like that. Clearly, if they'd been taxed as they'd gone along instead, they'd have had the higher marginal tax rates to moan about - also a disincentive to strive. But at least it would have been out in the open, rather than a stealth tax; and at least it would have provided greater certainty (the reduction of uncertainty also a small "c" conservative principle) more akin to an insurance premium than to accepting a tail risk (as @rural_voter put it on the last thread).
Let's deconstruct it
We trust the people of this country.... I'm already wanting to kill them. Do WE trust you is the issue.
Who know that we face difficult choices... well yes maybe, but that's what I'm hoping you'll help with!
And demand the respect of politicians - er... We don't care - it's your job to earn our respect.
Who should be honest about how those choices should be resolved - This suggests that the debate that you and I might have is simply secondary to the real debate with grown up people who are called politcians.
Don't really care whose manifesto it is, but it is the most empty of statements.
Edit: So I had no idea when I commented as to who might have spouted this nonsense. I do know now though. What on earth are they thinking!?
Also for many they will not need the care or experience a huge loss of capital. I do get the impression most have not considered the complexity of the issue and why should they. When you are in your md seventies as we are we have been aware that not only could we have to pay down to £23,250 but that we could have our home taken away. I know many who have been in anguish over the present system and at least Theresa May has had the courage to put it on the table, and no one else so far, has come up with a better alternative
Face it Tories, May isn't very good and she has bolloxed up her manifesto.
I'm not saying she won't win with a healthy majority, but she doesn't deserve it.
Also, final word, May probably does understand the iron rule - she is just so far ahead with the gray vote, she is trying to take the gamble of reaching out to others and make some difficult choices, without too many of them deserting her.
Where have the last twenty years gone!
Then there's the fact that if you don't accumulate assets/wealth during your lifetime the state will pay for you. My mum keeps reminding us that her uncle in Bolsover ended up in a home and that he was the only one paying as he had a house.
The Conservative manifesto included policies that will hit Tory voters.
That's the difference.
https://twitter.com/pestononsunday/status/865941621803823105
I really hope she keeps her seat.
Re Corbyn and the IRA - let's look at now rather than the past.
Corbyn allies himself with anti-Semites at a time when there are increasing attacks on Jews, some of them viciously murderous. He takes money from Press TV, the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, a regime which uses rape as a punishment and hangs gay men from cranes.
This is the leader of a party which claims to be in favour of gay rights, in favour of the rights of women and against racism. It has a leader who either simply does not understand the values he claims to believe in or is cynical about them or who believes that his enemy's enemy is his friend. I believe it to be the last. I think that the hard Left's belief in these values is skin deep and is chiefly used as a weapon against others. Certain victim groups are useful if they can be used to criticise others but can be - and are - dropped as soon as some other more fashionable "victim" group can trump them.
It is what happens when values are chiefly seen as a way of proclaiming one's own virtue and moral superiority rather than as moral imperatives which should determine one's actions.
But whatever the explanation it shows - to me anyway - that Corbyn is not a principled or honest politician, that he has appalling judgment (as he did with the IRA), that he simply cannot be trusted to act in the interests of British citizens and that he is, therefore, unfit to be a leader of a major political party let alone Prime Minister.
As for social care, I find it absurd that people should be incensed at the idea of using their rainy day savings for .... er .....rainy days.
It looks as if Labour wants us all to pay extra tax to fund social care for rich people so that Labour can then tax the inheritances received by the children of those rich people. Amazing how Labour seems to think that the rich should be taxed to pay for all the extra spending Labour has in mind but should not be expected to use their wealth to fund themselves during tough times.
Neither fair nor coherent, really.
Labour doesn't have a chance of being in power either.
The question is, what amount is so high that people don't complain?
It's fundamentally un-Conservative, you could earn a million quid through your own hard work then get early onset dementia and have it all whittled away to nothing over the next twenty or more years. Pooled risk through the taxation system would allow people to keep more of their earnings and this effect is magnified the more you have to protect - in a sense, the "dementia tax" is a regressive one, one that deincentivises work (why turn 65 with a million when you can turn 65 with a hundred thousand, the government will take it off you anyway).
A better system would be pooled risk through higher taxation over the course of your lifetime, meaning everyone risks 5% of their life savings rather than some people see 90% taken away from them. If that's too interventionist there's always the option of having a choice to pay 5% of your income into a fund or else be given a brompton cocktail when your marbles fall out. Personally I'd choose the latter, because once my brain is gone I no longer exist. But the Conservative proposal is genuinely the worst of all possible worlds.
Doesn't feel like that!
Can you even imagine if Theresa May had suggested a 5% care tax what would have happened
One of the more disturbing things about Corbyn is not just how hypocritical but how dishonest he is - especially given one of the things he claims sets him apart is his integrity!
https://twitter.com/JonnElledge/status/865319838494883840
I would applaud it due to personal circumstances mean I understand what has changed.
I will admit that I might not always give Labour policies the benefit of the doubt - but I remember well the 70's and 80's.
A post from Sotham earlier or yesterday did make me think about my own prejudices.
Lets be honest though, the left have their own set of prejudices
(I hope you will forgive the sarcasm. Your substantive point is of course correct - that they would say it is statism gone mad. The key thing, as SO noted earlier, is that we do need to have a conversation about this and while this may be a strange time and place to start it it has to be done at some point.)
My guess is that they will stick with the care policy but substantially raise the asset protection level to something closer to quarter of a million, and at least double the existing amount.
While they are at it, they need to clarify the level of the means test for pensioners winter fuel payments.
One week from now they say, 'we've listened, we've changed the levels as a result of your opinion' etc.
Is that a clearer message for you?
Hope you are well on the mend.
Is that clear for you?