The Labour tuition fees wheeze this morning is the most brilliant bit of fast political footwork since I don't know when, the perfect second part of the double whammy after May self-administered the first. Tories horrid to the old, Labour lovely to theytoung. Genius.
Agreed. Tories are getting mullered by labour in the campaign
I think that is easy to do when you are promising a literal moon on a stick.
i didn't say it was not a cynical self-serving lie, I just said it was a clever cynical self-serving lie.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
It may be helpful to know that millions of postal votes went out a week ago, I received mine the day of the tory manifesto launch whic was very good timing for me but not Theresa
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
Having Googled the 2015 position, the number of applications this time is about half of the number that came in for that election.
We've had annual votes 2015-2016-2017, and the Brexit vote is supposed to have engaged many prior non-voters. So we'd expect far fewer people missing off the list this time than in 2015, when it had been five years since a GE.
In 2015 the applications only pushed up the register by about 30% (of the apps), so the Guardian's 2.3m applications will probably turn into 0.75m extra voters. A lot of applications are "we've moved house" and hence lead to a balancing deletion, and the criteria for being on the register are much tighter now - an address must actually be a home. Absentee landlords and people with holiday homes they rarely visit are no longer entitled to vote at such addresses.
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
Maybe we should allocate a billion or three to finding a cure for Alzheimer's. Most of this social care / dementia debate would then become moot.
A friend of mine runs this fantastic company. I am much more confident about the treatment of Alzheimer's than I was 5 years ago. But it is still incredibly difficult
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai, and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
Am I the only sucker that pays their student loan back from overseas?
Maybe. The kids out here think they'll never go back home and they'll get away with it.
When, in ten years' time they are married with kids and want to go back to avoid expat school fees and cost of living, they'll realise their error and get stung for it - with interest.
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
Residential care is expensive, and they are leaving such folks with an extra £76k when the average equity in property probably isn't much above £100k to begin with. Balanced by the saving by making people with more equity than that pay towards home care.
Given that May has cooked this up herself in private, it really is a key question for Mr Neil tonight to be asking about the numbers. Abbot has set the benchmark for Mrs M to beat...
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
The last week or so has been clever politics by the Tories IMO. No party needs to have a 20 point lead in the polls. You might as well exchange some of that for proposing some very necessary but unpopular policies like they've done. A 10 point lead is still plenty to win a good majority for five years.
No: giving difficult and potentially unpopular, but necessary, policies the legitimacy of inclusion within the manifesto is sensible politics when doing so doesn't excessively place at risk the chance of a majority; unveiling a half-baked green paper as a central campaigning message, without explaining it properly and so leaving the field open for Labour and the Lib Dems to misrepresent is bloody stupid politics. It's all the more so because having mistreated and bored the media for the first month of the campaign, this is precisely the sort of story they were looking for to liven the election up and to stick one back to the Tories.
Afraid I'm with Andy here.
The Tory manifesto is grown up, putting the future of the country and people above party politics.
Oh, and it makes the Lords opposing it pretty difficult too.
I don't object to the principle; I object to the bloody stupid electoral politics. If the Party wants to introduce this, fine: it's a relatively minor extension of something that's already in place. However, by not focus grouping the messaging and by carelessly alienating the media, what could have been presented as a dividing line choice of competence vs irresponsibility has instead managed to be presented as a massive tax grab on middle- and lower-income earners.
But it's rubbish, she knows she will win seats rather than lose them. Even if she did lose 6 seats the DUP would support her and Corbyn wouldn't have enough seats to even form a coalition. Does she think people are stupid?
Or she's stupid herself (she's the one who called the election, giving the chance for Corbyn to negotiate Brexit)
The last week or so has been clever politics by the Tories IMO. No party needs to have a 20 point lead in the polls. You might as well exchange some of that for proposing some very necessary but unpopular policies like they've done. A 10 point lead is still plenty to win a good majority for five years.
No: giving difficult and potentially unpopular, but necessary, policies the legitimacy of inclusion within the manifesto is sensible politics when doing so doesn't excessively place at risk the chance of a majority; unveiling a half-baked green paper as a central campaigning message, without explaining it properly and so leaving the field open for Labour and the Lib Dems to misrepresent is bloody stupid politics. It's all the more so because having mistreated and bored the media for the first month of the campaign, this is precisely the sort of story they were looking for to liven the election up and to stick one back to the Tories.
Afraid I'm with Andy here.
The Tory manifesto is grown up, putting the future of the country and people above party politics.
Oh, and it makes the Lords opposing it pretty difficult too.
In the least surprising news of the day, PB's resident young fogey May fanboy boosterizes Theresa May.
But it's rubbish, she knows she will win seats rather than lose them. Even if she did lose 6 seats the DUP would support her and Corbyn wouldn't have enough seats to even form a coalition. Does she think people are stupid?
Or she's stupid herself (she's the one who called the election, giving the chance for Corbyn to negotiate Brexit)
Jezza seems fairly uninterested in Brexit, it would be Starmer doing Brexit negotiations.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
I think it is possible, because May’s system produces winners and losers. We are hearing a lot from the losers at the moment.
The gainers are the people in residential care who pay virtually the full whack at the moment and will in future pay only down to their last 100k. The losers are those with in-home care, because now their house will be included in the assets, and they will pay more.
This is consistent with little extra money being raised, but the existing financial pain being more fairly balanced between those in residential care and those receiving home care.
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
Residential care is expensive, and they are leaving such folks with an extra £76k when the average equity in property probably isn't much above £100k to begin with. Balanced by the saving by making people with more equity than that pay towards home care.
Given that May has cooked this up herself in private, it really is a key question for Mr Neil tonight to be asking about the numbers. Abbot has set the benchmark for Mrs M to beat...
Yes.
I didn't mean I was flabbergasted because it seemed self-evident from the numbers that it would raise extra money - it was more that I didn't think they would have proposed something so potentially unpopular if the benefit to the public finances was so marginal.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
I'd split hairs and put the Tories at 320-7 currently, but great analogy David.
Or she's stupid herself (she's the one who called the election, giving the chance for Corbyn to negotiate Brexit)
Or possibly cynical if one of the reasons that she called the election when she did was that she was worried that Corbyn would be replaced after the local elections and wanted to destroy Labour while he was leader. Especially if she planned to campaign on how much of a menace Corbyn is.
For people emoting about how terrible a 50 seat majority is, please remember than it's the largest majority that the Tories will have won since 1987.
Regardless, it's a derisory performance against Corbyn, particularly with UKIP and the Lib Dems in tatters.
5 years plus keeps Corbyn in place for at least another couple of years? You get through Brexit and then look to secure a transformational majority in '22
LOL. Dream on. There's a recession due - probably an extremely bad one thanks to Brexit, but one due anyway. Tories will be v v unpopular within two or three years of this result.
Wasn't the 2010 winner going to be destroyed as a result of coping with the circumstances?
For people emoting about how terrible a 50 seat majority is, please remember than it's the largest majority that the Tories will have won since 1987.
Regardless, it's a derisory performance against Corbyn, particularly with UKIP and the Lib Dems in tatters.
Better than the posh boys ever managed...
As you well know had Dave become PM last year under the same circumstances he would be well ahead of where TM is now. She would have lost to Miliband in 2015. Still waiting to hear if you've found any policies she hasn't bungled or nicked from Labour yet?
April 2016. Cameron's Tories trail Corbyn's Labour in the opinion polls. This bizarre defence of the bleeding obvious baffles me - May is far more popular in government than Cameron....
Cameron was behind because of Europe. Had he become leader in 2016 as a Remainer (like Tessie) he would be doing better than she is Posh Boy or not. . Bizarre defence of Mrs May is considerably more baffling.You criticize Dave and George for being Lib Dems and taking the party away from you but eulogise over TM and the SDP. Astonishing really....By the way discovered any coherent policy yet? Thought not
MattChorley: The rest of the campaign: Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax IRA Dementia Tax
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
Labour HQ think they've done quite well this time wit a registration drive among the young, partly as a backlash from young people realising they disenfranchised themselves over Brexit. Obviously not all these new voters are Labour, but it's another straw in the wind, or straw to clutch, depending on one's mood:
Perhaps the astroturfers who pop up every election: I'm a floating voter leaning towards Lab/Con/SNP but am concerned about Jezza's/Tezza's/Nicola's secret plan to send small boys up chimneys, so if the political correspondent of the Mail or Mirror is looking in, could they please splash this outrage.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
I'd split hairs and put the Tories at 320-7 currently, but great analogy David.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
Residential care is expensive, and they are leaving such folks with an extra £76k when the average equity in property probably isn't much above £100k to begin with. Balanced by the saving by making people with more equity than that pay towards home care.
Given that May has cooked this up herself in private, it really is a key question for Mr Neil tonight to be asking about the numbers. Abbot has set the benchmark for Mrs M to beat...
Yes.
I didn't mean I was flabbergasted because it seemed self-evident from the numbers that it would raise extra money - it was more that I didn't think they would have proposed something so potentially unpopular if the benefit to the public finances was so marginal.
The benefit to the Exchequer is massive, based on in-home care now becoming chargeable for all with property assets. £10bn a year over time seems to be the consensus here.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
I'd split hairs and put the Tories at 320-7 currently, but great analogy David.
Yup. Middle order collapse.
Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard to see them fall over the line
Survation still has the Tories gaining 60% of UKIP voters but they are now losing 7% of 2015 Tory voters to Labour and only gaining 8% of 2015 Labour voters and actually making a small net loss yo the LDs gaining 3% but losing 3.2%. Labour meanwhile is picking up 12% of 2015 LDs
It's a 'phone poll which started with 58% Remain sample.
Phone 'polls throw up all manner of oddities - Ipsos continually drag in samples where 40% of the workers contacted are in the public sector.
Survation produced an online poll with a lead of 12 at the same time as a phone poll with a lead of 9,
Nonetheless all post manifesto polls show the same thing, Corbyn picking up a quarter of 2015 LDs even if the Tories are picking up 60% of 2015 UKIP voters
The key will be whether LD and Labour voters make different choices in different seats.
Ironically the LDs could make net gains through tactical voting in Tory Remain seats despite flatlining voteshare but Labour still make a net loss of seats despite increased voteshare because of the UKIP vote going Tory in Labour Leave seats
Both sides have the problem that Corbyn makes LD voters less keen to vote tactically (half of them probably prefer May) and the fading memory of the coalition makes Labour voters less keen. Maybe the glitter falling off the Tory campaign (not that there really was any) combined with vigorous opposition from the LDs to the Tory pensioner plans changes things?
Labour voters are more likely to vote tactically LD than LD voters to vote tactically for Corbyn Labour I think, compare Richmond Park and Copeland
I have just voted. I voted for the candidate best positioned to stop the Tories getting a majority.
There was already the Dilnot report, which probably had a a thousand times more man hours spent on it.
Yeah and capping the maximum you will pay instead of the maximum you will keep would be a lot more politically sellable.
Indeed, the utter arrogance of Nick Timothy to sidestep Dilnott on this one is shocking. If this was 1617 and not 2017, he'd have an appointment at Tower Hill.
The Dilnot proposals came out on 4 July 2011 under the Coalition.
Why did the Coalition not implement them?
Why did Osborne/Cameron decide to implement them at a suitably distant date in the future, in 2020?
There are obvious answers to these questions. The Dilnot proposals require a lot of money, and it is politically difficult to identify a palatable way of raising that money.
Much easier to kick the can down the road. As the Coalition did. As Cameron/Osborne did.
Well it sounds like May decided the Tories should be bold and take the plunge (Fair enough). Who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan ?
I don’t know who came up with the numbers for the Tory plan.
However, it is reasonably easy to work out kind of money we need to raise.
I was flabbergasted when someone posted a statement from the IFS casting doubt on whether the Conservatives' proposed changes will raise any extra money at all!
Residential care is expensive, and they are leaving such folks with an extra £76k when the average equity in property probably isn't much above £100k to begin with. Balanced by the saving by making people with more equity than that pay towards home care.
Given that May has cooked this up herself in private, it really is a key question for Mr Neil tonight to be asking about the numbers. Abbot has set the benchmark for Mrs M to beat...
Yes.
I didn't mean I was flabbergasted because it seemed self-evident from the numbers that it would raise extra money - it was more that I didn't think they would have proposed something so potentially unpopular if the benefit to the public finances was so marginal.
It is presumably because if nothing was done, then Dilmot was due to come in to effect in 2020 (courtesy of Dave and George leaving a huge elephant trap for the successor).
Dilmot is much more expensive, and they can’t see how to raise the money for Dilmot.
Survation still has the Tories gaining 60% of UKIP voters but they are now losing 7% of 2015 Tory voters to Labour and only gaining 8% of 2015 Labour voters and actually making a small net loss yo the LDs gaining 3% but losing 3.2%. Labour meanwhile is picking up 12% of 2015 LDs
It's a 'phone poll which started with 58% Remain sample.
Phone 'polls throw up all manner of oddities - Ipsos continually drag in samples where 40% of the workers contacted are in the public sector.
Survation produced an online poll with a lead of 12 at the same time as a phone poll with a lead of 9,
Nonetheless all post manifesto polls show the same thing, Corbyn picking up a quarter of 2015 LDs even if the Tories are picking up 60% of 2015 UKIP voters
The key will be whether LD and Labour voters make different choices in different seats.
Ironically the LDs could make net gains through tactical voting in Tory Remain seats despite flatlining voteshare but Labour still make a net loss of seats despite increased voteshare because of the UKIP vote going Tory in Labour Leave seats
Both sides have the problem that Corbyn makes LD voters less keen to vote tactically (half of them probably prefer May) and the fading memory of the coalition makes Labour voters less keen. Maybe the glitter falling off the Tory campaign (not that there really was any) combined with vigorous opposition from the LDs to the Tory pensioner plans changes things?
Labour voters are more likely to vote tactically LD than LD voters to vote tactically for Corbyn Labour I think, compare Richmond Park and Copeland
I have just voted. I voted for the candidate best positioned to stop the Tories getting a majority.
I would never have guessed.
Wait... surbiton doesn't vote Tory? Well, blow me down!
From the article someone posted earlier. Thought this was interesting.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
How many billion will that cost?
Possibly nothing, we don't really know. One irony is, for the reasons already given, we cannot even be sure the old system of free tuition and grants would not be cheaper than the current one of fees and loans.
From the article someone posted earlier. Thought this was interesting.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
The interesting question now is whether the Conservatives will try to change the subject, or try to tackle the (largely cynical) misrepresentations of the social care policy head-on, and explain what it actually is. Not an easy decision for a political campaign strategy. Usually the answer is to change the subject, but in this case I have a hunch that it's better to try to grind down the misrepresentation.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
How many billion will that cost?
Possibly nothing, we don't really know. One irony is, for the reasons already given, we cannot even be sure the old system of free tuition and grants would not be cheaper than the current one of fees and loans.
I can't believe cancelling all existing student debt would be zero cost.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
I'd split hairs and put the Tories at 320-7 currently, but great analogy David.
Yup. Middle order collapse.
Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard to see them fall over the line
More like Tuffers and Devon Malcom the way things are heading.
The issue isn't over the rights and wrongs of the policy, but on how the Conservatives will react. The chances of a win (even a big win) aren't hugely affected - the underlying elements (economic credibility, leadership, local performance) that Matt Singh so perceptively analysed last time to detect a polling mismatch with what people were going to actually do in the polling box are still there. Only if or when the leadership and the economic credibility numbers change hugely should the Tories worry. "Expressed preference" versus "revealed preference" again - telling the pollsters that they're unhappy is a free hit at the top of the poll. Telling them about what they really think gets teased out later.
It is, however, possible for the Tory campaign leaders to overreact and/or panic at the top lines of the polls. That could be interesting, simply by increasing the volatility of potential outcomes.
Watching May's performance so far is to relive the horror of England vs Iceland. It can happen.
Surely, England Windies test matches in the 70s and 80s? Football doesn't catch the drawn out agony over days and days.
Not really, because everyone expected the WIndies to win. In fact, that comparison is how it should have felt to a Labour supporter going in to this election. Instead, they find themselves midway through the third test only 1-0 down in the series and with the Tories 280-7 (having been 220-2) in response to their 350 in this match.
I'd split hairs and put the Tories at 320-7 currently, but great analogy David.
Yup. Middle order collapse.
Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard to see them fall over the line
More like Tuffers and Devon Malcom the way things are heading.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
How many billion will that cost?
Possibly nothing, we don't really know. One irony is, for the reasons already given, we cannot even be sure the old system of free tuition and grants would not be cheaper than the current one of fees and loans.
I can't believe cancelling all existing student debt would be zero cost.
you havent seen what an absolute cock up David Willetts has made of the scheme
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
I'm in favour of key workers having their student loans taken care of, in exchange for working for the state such as the NHS. A similar scheme is operated by airlines in the form of a training bond.
I'd have the NHS sponsor medical training for doctors, in exchange for fifteen years' service after graduation.
I can't believe cancelling all existing student debt would be zero cost.
you havent seen what an absolute cock up David Willetts has made of the scheme
What are the major problems, I have very little experience with it as I am under the old scheme. That said, there's still a lot of debt on the books from before any changes in the coalition, so fail to see how it could be zero cost.
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
I'm in favour of key workers having their student loans taken care of, in exchange for working for the state such as the NHS. A similar scheme is operated by airlines in the form of a training bond.
I'd have the NHS sponsor medical training for doctors, in exchange for fifteen years' service after graduation.
Isn't there already a scheme like that for teachers?
Inheritance tax is often labelled a 'death tax'. Isn't the implication of the dementia tax that we will slowly move to a true death tax where the more expensively you die, the more you pay?
The Tory office/workshop vote here is standing firm. Tried to divert my Labour colleague who'd never vote Tory to the Lib Dems...
Did you succeed?
Well I pointed out to him that he was in Chesterfield, and showed him the history of it - obviously 2015 was a "bad year" for the Lib Dems there. The amazing thing is he voted for Brexit and was complaining the Tories wanted to privatise the NHS ! He didn't arrange himself a postal in the locals (He was out the country at the time).
He will think it over I reckon - I pointed out to him that Labour's plans were totally uncosted and so forth whereas the Lib Dem ones are far more sensible.
Another day, another Rolf bloody Harris (87) trial; thanks for the useful expenditure of my tax dollars. In his position, I'd be feigning dementia which, apart from anything, would create some interesting law as to how the claims of his victims and his LA to his net worth >£100,000 rank.
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist? Are they going to refund those who have been making repayments?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
On tuition fees, there must be a point past which higher fees cost the government more money.
Say they were set at a million pounds (Bear with me on this) and a million for each student is passed over to unis
The average student then pays back 100k say, which with inflation and so forth has an NPV of 50k over lifetime. So basically the government loses out by 950k due to the loan structure.
OTOH fees of say £5,000 (Total) would pretty much be always recouped
What is the actual "inflexion point" here ?
The current student loan situation is a complete mess. The problem they have is graduates disappearing and failing to pay back the loans, or never earning enough to do so. Funnily enough most of those are from the wider EU countries who we have no choice but to allow into the scheme.
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
How many billion will that cost?
To be truly fair, and to avoid having a "uniquely penalised generation", anyone who has ever repaid student debt should have their repayments refunded by a Labout government.
It would win my vote. I'd be quids in and heading on a round the world holiday. In the world of free unicorns, every vote is up for sale.
The interesting question now is whether the Conservatives will try to change the subject, or try to tackle the (largely cynical) misrepresentations of the social care policy head-on, and explain what it actually is. Not an easy decision for a political campaign strategy. Usually the answer is to change the subject, but in this case I have a hunch that it's better to try to grind down the misrepresentation.
Yep. I think this is one of those unusual subjects that gets better for the government the more it's talked about. Most people are in ignorance about how the care system currently works.
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Another day, another Rolf bloody Harris (87) trial; thanks for the useful expenditure of my tax dollars. In his position, I'd be feigning dementia which, apart from anything, would create some interesting law as to how the claims of his victims and his LA to his net worth >£100,000 rank.
You'd hope his estate would cover the trial cost first, and then the whatever is left to his victims.
"It's not too late to sack Nick Timothy and bring back George Osborne."
George already has fifteen jobs, don't saddle him with another.
The Tories don't deserve to win but they will.
This is all Osborne's fault. The Death Tax stuff from the 2010 general election is coming back to haunt the Tories. This would not have been an issue now if something had been done about it then - as it could have been.
He also thinks May is wrong to mention an immigration target if less than 100k. What kind of cretin would do that (in 2010)?
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Imagine they did, Rob.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
From the article someone posted earlier. Thought this was interesting.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
May needs to be all over this tonight. I don't want to go all SeanT, but this is make or break time!
I agree. This is turning toxic.
I wanted the cap. Looks like that has gone.
So, I want some guarantees on what exactly this deferment of the payment until death means. For example, three different Cabinet ministers talked about this as a positive. Each time, and I was listening carefully, they said "and a spouse would be protected".
What about partners? Civil or otherwise.
Tories like marriage. Are we actually seeing a backdoor method to increase marriage? Surely not in 2017?
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Imagine they did, Rob.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
I'd like to get the capital back I've paid down on my loan at the very least, could top up the Betfair account with it. (It is about 6k or thereabouts)
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
Yes, that occurred to me - a real election-winner there, not to be confused with a bribe . It would however be a leeetle bit expensive, and McDonnell is actually trying to make the manifesto reasonably free of black holes. He's such a boring centrist...
On Tory direction, as Richard says they have a choice this week, with most postal votes arriving in the next couple of days:
1. Argue the case over pensioners. No, it's not a threat to your home, well, no more of a threat than we already have, oh you didn't know? Well, it's like this, pay attention. And the WFA shouldn't go to millionaires, unless they're Scottish millionaires. And the change to the double lock will save a lot of money, but actually won't affect you because inflation is going over 2.5% anyway.
2. Change the subject to Brexit. That's what the election is about, dammit. Stop trying to talk about other stuff, like our manifesto. We shall insist on something, though we can't exactly say what, and we'll be firm and fierce just like 52% of you, and it may cost money but we reserve the right to put your taxes up to pay for it, and no, we won't say how much. Concentrate on how strong and stable we are, like we've shown this week.
3. Change the subject toi the IRA. 40 years ago, Corbyn may or maybe not have been previously on the editorial board of a magazine that you've never heard of which published a nasty jibe about Norman Tebbit, OK so Corbyn wasn't on the board then but anyway, he met Sinn Fein people before the Queen did and it shows he was a terrorist sympathiser, and this election isn't about Brexit and it isn't about what we'll do, it's about stopping Corbyn, that's why we called it three years early, see?
Good luck! But satire aside, the point is that no party can successfully push more than one message at once. As Richard observes, it's a difficult choice for them.
The issue isn't over the rights and wrongs of the policy, but on how the Conservatives will react. The chances of a win (even a big win) aren't hugely affected - the underlying elements (economic credibility, leadership, local performance) that Matt Singh so perceptively analysed last time to detect a polling mismatch with what people were going to actually do in the polling box are still there. Only if or when the leadership and the economic credibility numbers change hugely should the Tories worry. "Expressed preference" versus "revealed preference" again - telling the pollsters that they're unhappy is a free hit at the top of the poll. Telling them about what they really think gets teased out later.
It is, however, possible for the Tory campaign leaders to overreact and/or panic at the top lines of the polls. That could be interesting, simply by increasing the volatility of potential outcomes.
Well said, Andy. The worst thing that could happen now is for the Tories to start panicking, and as you correctly point out, over reacting to the current headline polling figures. They must hold their nerve.
May has a superb opportunity tonight to calm Tory nerves, and indeed high light the difference between her and old Mr 'I'm not an IRA sympathiser, honest gov'. It should be the easiest thing in the world to do...but...Andrew Neil....
The interesting question now is whether the Conservatives will try to change the subject, or try to tackle the (largely cynical) misrepresentations of the social care policy head-on, and explain what it actually is. Not an easy decision for a political campaign strategy. Usually the answer is to change the subject, but in this case I have a hunch that it's better to try to grind down the misrepresentation.
Yep. I think this is one of those unusual subjects that gets better for the government the more it's talked about. Most people are in ignorance about how the care system currently works.
Did they really want that to happen half way through a GE campaign though?
I am also minded to ask - now we know what a lottery the current system is (with some councils not allowing any deferment until death) - why have the Tories done nothing since getting into office on this?
If you're from Estonia or Romania, you can get a free degree from a British university as long as you don't get a PAYE job in the UK afterwards.
Unfair to try and pin the problem on EU students, who remain a small minority. The more fundamental problem is that the growing army of young people with degrees are not walking into secure higher-paid career paths, like many (of the smaller proportion of) graduates did thirty or forty years ago.
There's that too. When 15% of the population were graduates, they pretty much all walked into a very good career afterwards. Now that close to 50% are graduating there's not enough good careers to go around.
As well as the EU students, there's also the British graduates who emigrate to consider - I live in Dubai (hence the name), and there's plenty of twenty-something Brits out here who have no intention of paying back their student loans. In the modern world it's very easy for someone to disappear from debts in another country.
What happens if they want to re-appear ?
They get a lesson in compound interest
What grads need is for Jezzas plan to include a waiving of existing student debt, rather than just prospectively. Otherwise we will have a uniquely penalised generation.
I'm in favour of key workers having their student loans taken care of, in exchange for working for the state such as the NHS. A similar scheme is operated by airlines in the form of a training bond.
I'd have the NHS sponsor medical training for doctors, in exchange for fifteen years' service after graduation.
Isn't there already a scheme like that for teachers?
Don't know. How it works in the airline industry is that a "type rating" for a specific plane (B737, A320 etc) costs something like $30k, and if you need to be trained for the aircraft you're being hired to fly the company will pro-rata a bond over something like three years - so they'll pay for your training up front but you'll owe them pro-rata if you quit your job before three years are up.
If you're hired by Ryanair then you'll be paying for the type rating yourself, and end up on a "Zero Hours Contract" at £50 an hour. To anyone flying Ryanair, the guy in the right hand seat at the front is basically paying to be there.
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Imagine they did, Rob.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Imagine they did, Rob.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
Worth pointing out that student loans cover much more than 'just' fees. No way they can be cancelled. Unless we now have a policy of giving 10k+ a year to every student for living and accomodation as well.
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
Yeah, there is no way a £100bn book is going to cost nothing to cancel.
Imagine they did, Rob.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
I'd like to get the capital back I've paid down on my loan at the very least, could top up the Betfair account with it. (It is about 6k or thereabouts)
The Dementia Tax seems a curious and unforced error. Was it simple laziness borne of hubris and complacency?
It's bizarre. She wanted a mandate for Brexit and instead has campaigned solely on pissing off her own support base. It's really very odd. Unless they have game played this and found that in some way the approach taken maximises vote efficiency
Inheritance tax is often labelled a 'death tax'. Isn't the implication of the dementia tax that we will slowly move to a true death tax where the more expensively you die, the more you pay?
It isn't a tax, it's a credit card - consolidate your pesky home care debts onto one 0% interest card and pay nothing till you pop your clogs. To an uber rightist these are just costs for which you are liable in the same way as you are liable to pay to have your car serviced; to the squidgy centre they have an NHS type vibe and should be free at point of supply. I think many people, including me, are more taken aback by what they have learnt in the last 48 hours about how things work now, than by what changes TM proposes to make. Just dreadful presentation from her.
From the article someone posted earlier. Thought this was interesting.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
May needs to be all over this tonight. I don't want to go all SeanT, but this is make or break time!
I agree. This is turning toxic.
I wanted the cap. Looks like that has gone.
So, I want some guarantees on what exactly this deferment of the payment until death means. For example, three different Cabinet ministers talked about this as a positive. Each time, and I was listening carefully, they said "and a spouse would be protected".
What about partners? Civil or otherwise.
Tories like marriage. Are we actually seeing a backdoor method to increase marriage? Surely not in 2017?
I'd assume that would be spouse / civil partners. If you haven't availed yourselves of the legal avenues to get married then you shouldn't expect the tax system to treat you as if you have
The Dementia Tax seems a curious and unforced error. Was it simple laziness borne of hubris and complacency?
It's bizarre. She wanted a mandate for Brexit and instead has campaigned solely on pissing off her own support base. It's really very odd. Unless they have game played this and found that in some water the approach taken maximises vote efficiency
Game playing it would have required sharing their plans with more than a handful of people.
From the article someone posted earlier. Thought this was interesting.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
May needs to be all over this tonight. I don't want to go all SeanT, but this is make or break time!
I agree. This is turning toxic.
I wanted the cap. Looks like that has gone.
So, I want some guarantees on what exactly this deferment of the payment until death means. For example, three different Cabinet ministers talked about this as a positive. Each time, and I was listening carefully, they said "and a spouse would be protected".
What about partners? Civil or otherwise.
Tories like marriage. Are we actually seeing a backdoor method to increase marriage? Surely not in 2017?
What about my brother-in-law who has moved in with his mum to look after after her? He is not a spouse or a civil partner but has a 49% share in her property (she has the other 51%)
One doorstep just now described the Dementia Tax as the Tories "Devon Loch moment". Said his postal vote had arrived today and was now voting Corbyn after intending to vote for that stupid woman.
Comments
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/debate-audience-turns-nicola-sturgeon-snp-trouble/
I think independence dreams have withered on the vine of the SNP's shit record in government. Ho hum.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/22/one-orb-to-rule-them-all-image-of-trump-and-glowing-globe-perplexes-internet
We've had annual votes 2015-2016-2017, and the Brexit vote is supposed to have engaged many prior non-voters. So we'd expect far fewer people missing off the list this time than in 2015, when it had been five years since a GE.
In 2015 the applications only pushed up the register by about 30% (of the apps), so the Guardian's 2.3m applications will probably turn into 0.75m extra voters. A lot of applications are "we've moved house" and hence lead to a balancing deletion, and the criteria for being on the register are much tighter now - an address must actually be a home. Absentee landlords and people with holiday homes they rarely visit are no longer entitled to vote at such addresses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOAy9IgZ1Cg
A friend of mine runs this fantastic company. I am much more confident about the treatment of Alzheimer's than I was 5 years ago. But it is still incredibly difficult
http://unitedneuroscience.com/
When, in ten years' time they are married with kids and want to go back to avoid expat school fees and cost of living, they'll realise their error and get stung for it - with interest.
Given that May has cooked this up herself in private, it really is a key question for Mr Neil tonight to be asking about the numbers. Abbot has set the benchmark for Mrs M to beat...
Incidentally, I did actually laugh out loud when I saw those Survation numbers.
The way it works with Corbyn is
1. Angry with the Tories so will vote labour
2. Still fed up with the Tories but not sure about voting Labour
3. forget all about being fed up with the Tories because the polls say Labour are catching up
4.Vote Tory in greater numbers than we've seen since the war in case Corbyn gets in
He seems less Quixotic than David Davis.
The gainers are the people in residential care who pay virtually the full whack at the moment and will in future pay only down to their last 100k. The losers are those with in-home care, because now their house will be included in the assets, and they will pay more.
This is consistent with little extra money being raised, but the existing financial pain being more fairly balanced between those in residential care and those receiving home care.
Mr. Palmer, seen plenty of twittery on that image. It's rather good.
Speaking of such things, just (finally) ordered Shadow of Mordor, for a little under £15. Quite looking forward to it.
Thanks.
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/regional-affairs/observer-uganda-opposition-leader-under-13062082
I didn't mean I was flabbergasted because it seemed self-evident from the numbers that it would raise extra money - it was more that I didn't think they would have proposed something so potentially unpopular if the benefit to the public finances was so marginal.
. Bizarre defence of Mrs May is considerably more baffling.You criticize Dave and George for being Lib Dems and taking the party away from you but eulogise over TM and the SDP. Astonishing really....By the way discovered any coherent policy yet? Thought not
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
IRA
Dementia Tax
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/dementia-tax-google-adverts-conservatives-stop-reading-policy-controversy-election-2017-manifesto-a7748646.html
Dilmot is much more expensive, and they can’t see how to raise the money for Dilmot.
So, they have to propose an alternative.
Diane Abbott in charge of the police, prisons and MI5.
It helps to look at the numbers. Around one in 10 elderly people will need to spend more than £100,000 on their care costs, with some facing costs as high as £300,000. But the median wealth of people in their seventies, the age when they are most likely to need social care, is only around £150,000. Under the Conservative reforms, the majority of elderly people who need extensive care towards the end of their life would not face any significant out-of-pocket payments. The state would end up providing for them.
So the median person in their 70s pays around 1/3 of care costs. At the top end, people have to pay up to £300,000 (which is at, worst, 75% of their wealth).
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps a way to improve the politics would be to include, say, a cap on £500,000 on care spending that any individual will need to pay? I don't know the numbers, but presumably that wouldn't end up being a huge commitment for the government?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-tory-manifesto-pensioners-a7747196.html
The chances of a win (even a big win) aren't hugely affected - the underlying elements (economic credibility, leadership, local performance) that Matt Singh so perceptively analysed last time to detect a polling mismatch with what people were going to actually do in the polling box are still there.
Only if or when the leadership and the economic credibility numbers change hugely should the Tories worry. "Expressed preference" versus "revealed preference" again - telling the pollsters that they're unhappy is a free hit at the top of the poll. Telling them about what they really think gets teased out later.
It is, however, possible for the Tory campaign leaders to overreact and/or panic at the top lines of the polls. That could be interesting, simply by increasing the volatility of potential outcomes.
I'd have the NHS sponsor medical training for doctors, in exchange for fifteen years' service after graduation.
The amazing thing is he voted for Brexit and was complaining the Tories wanted to privatise the NHS ! He didn't arrange himself a postal in the locals (He was out the country at the time).
He will think it over I reckon - I pointed out to him that Labour's plans were totally uncosted and so forth whereas the Lib Dem ones are far more sensible.
"Currently more than £10 billion is loaned to students each year. This is likely to grow rapidly over the new few years and the Government expected the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014-15 prices) in 2018"
What happens to the £100bn and the 9% graduate tax (loan repayments) that already exist? Are they going to refund those who have been making repayments?
Why is it fair that people who chose to take a different career path - especially the lower paid - subsidise those who go to university?
5. Remember that twitter isn't representative of the voting public so conclude that the large Con majority was completely unmoved by the campaign
6. Order another inquiry into why the pollsters suggested the contest was interesting or close.
7. Vaguely remember the lessons from the EU referendum campaign and realise that nobody paid attention again.
It would win my vote. I'd be quids in and heading on a round the world holiday. In the world of free unicorns, every vote is up for sale.
My uncle's voting Lib Dem, on a lesser of evils basis.
The people who have paid nothing back get away with it - so what happens to those who have dutifully been paying 9% added tax for years?
I wanted the cap. Looks like that has gone.
So, I want some guarantees on what exactly this deferment of the payment until death means. For example, three different Cabinet ministers talked about this as a positive. Each time, and I was listening carefully, they said "and a spouse would be protected".
What about partners? Civil or otherwise.
Tories like marriage. Are we actually seeing a backdoor method to increase marriage? Surely not in 2017?
On Tory direction, as Richard says they have a choice this week, with most postal votes arriving in the next couple of days:
1. Argue the case over pensioners. No, it's not a threat to your home, well, no more of a threat than we already have, oh you didn't know? Well, it's like this, pay attention. And the WFA shouldn't go to millionaires, unless they're Scottish millionaires. And the change to the double lock will save a lot of money, but actually won't affect you because inflation is going over 2.5% anyway.
2. Change the subject to Brexit. That's what the election is about, dammit. Stop trying to talk about other stuff, like our manifesto. We shall insist on something, though we can't exactly say what, and we'll be firm and fierce just like 52% of you, and it may cost money but we reserve the right to put your taxes up to pay for it, and no, we won't say how much. Concentrate on how strong and stable we are, like we've shown this week.
3. Change the subject toi the IRA. 40 years ago, Corbyn may or maybe not have been previously on the editorial board of a magazine that you've never heard of which published a nasty jibe about Norman Tebbit, OK so Corbyn wasn't on the board then but anyway, he met Sinn Fein people before the Queen did and it shows he was a terrorist sympathiser, and this election isn't about Brexit and it isn't about what we'll do, it's about stopping Corbyn, that's why we called it three years early, see?
Good luck! But satire aside, the point is that no party can successfully push more than one message at once. As Richard observes, it's a difficult choice for them.
May has a superb opportunity tonight to calm Tory nerves, and indeed high light the difference between her and old Mr 'I'm not an IRA sympathiser, honest gov'. It should be the easiest thing in the world to do...but...Andrew Neil....
I am also minded to ask - now we know what a lottery the current system is (with some councils not allowing any deferment until death) - why have the Tories done nothing since getting into office on this?
If you're hired by Ryanair then you'll be paying for the type rating yourself, and end up on a "Zero Hours Contract" at £50 an hour. To anyone flying Ryanair, the guy in the right hand seat at the front is basically paying to be there.
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-05-22/campaign-live-monday-22nd-may/
Who placed that quintet behind Caroline Lucas?
But a CAP on costs has not been mentioned in the manifesto
Perhaps a clarification to the policy... ? Cap/collar ?
Loving this.
Everybody is on about it
They could get humped if so.