It's clear some on here would like nothing better than to see the LDs turfed out of Parliament completely but everyone within the Party knows it's going to be a dog fight to save what we can.
The nadir in terms of seats and votes was 2.8% and 6 seats in 1951 followed by 7.5% and 6 seats in 1970. I suspect we won't go below the 1951 vote share but there's a real danger the party could be left with 1-3 MPs.
Would that be the end ? Hardly.
Once the Conservatives lurch into the long spell of mid-term unpopularity, there'll be plenty of council seats to take and constituencies to rebuild - looking forward to it.
To avoid a total collapse in confidence, what the Tories and their inevitably dispirited troops badly need today or tomorrow are a couple of polls giving them solid, double digit leads or something very close thereto. Anyone know from which polling firms we are expecting to hear next?
Panelbase later on today
Who warn of a further narrowing of the Con lead (although from the highs of 15).
To avoid a total collapse in confidence, what the Tories and their inevitably dispirited troops badly need today or tomorrow are a couple of polls giving them solid, double digit leads or something very close thereto. Anyone know from which polling firms we are expecting to hear next?
Panelbase later on today
Who warn of a further narrowing of the Con lead (although from the highs of 15).
People need to take a chill pill.
Mrs May is going to win a majority.
The only question is how large it is.
Any chance you could express deliver some of those chill pills across the pond?
Iain Dale really pissed off with Yasmin Alibhai Brown saying sending Rudd was cruel because her father had died. Dale says I KNOW she was given the choice and it's what her father would have wanted, that's why she did it.
When the PM gives you the "choice" of doing their bidding or opting out, it's hardly likely you'll say no. In any event the PM, knowing Rudd's situation should have simply have excused her. Rudd had a valid excuse, the Prime Minister didn't.
We have a choice between a "Poundshop Prime Minister" in May and a "Bankrupt Stock LotO" in Jezza. Some choice ....
Don't talk rubbish, you have no idea what the personal situations involved here are. Quite frankly I think it's a bit offensive to suggest the PM, no matter how hopeless she is, would either directly or indirectly force anyone to work in that situation.
It was Rudd's call.
Even allowing Amber Rudd agreed to take part, who precisely was twisting the Prime Minister's arm not to and what should we infer of May's character -- that she allowed herself to be browbeaten by a media adviser in a shiny suit or that she wimped out?
Theresa May didn't want to do the debate. That was her choice.
I happen to think general election TV debates are terrible and never really agreed with them even back in 2010 so I'm pleased that Theresa May stuck to her guns on this rather than dancing to the broadcasters tune.
The media and broadcasters want debates for their own entertainment and amusement but it has very little to do with governing.
The fact the entire fate of the nation for the following five years now seems to boil down to who performs best in a 90 minute TV debate seems ludicrous to me...
Unfortunately it seems we're stuck with them but all leaders should have the right not to do them if they want.
Family anecdote time. Was with the parents, background- both working class families, mums were WC Conservatives who thought Maggie was the greatest thing that ever walked the earth, Dad's were hardcore old labour trade unionists bordering communist in some ways (the good, everyone is born equal and should live equal way). Mum has always voted Tory, Dad rarely votes, but voted Maggie in 79 and Cameron in 2010. He usually only turns out when he thinks it's time to get rid of a Labour government, he despised Blair from day one bit has a strange infatuation and empathy with Tony Benn and has his parents hard left streak under the surface. Both voted for Brexit, both originally voted to join the common market. Mum asked nervously if Corbyn might win this, I said I didn't know and probably don't care anymore, it's a terrible choice either way. She likes May but she isn't as committed to voting as she has always been and its fear of Corbyn that is driving her to the booth this time, but she said stoically that there's nothing we can do about it anyway. I get the impression she thinks this one has slipped out the Tory grasp but she's much less vocal than 2010 when she was proclaiming the end times if we didn't get rid of Brown. Dad is thinking of voting for May as he really liked her until about a week ago when she started winding him up, not sure why, he gets huffy about people sometimes. He hates Corbyn, which seems odd if you contrast it with his Benn admiration but he thinks Corbyn is false and duplicitous. The Falklands thing hit home hard for hi (Benn?! I know right?!). He was impressed May had decided not to debate declaring it a waste of time and all hot air. He was pissed off when I told him Rudd was going instead as he didn't know that and said what a daft thing to do. I've got a feeling he's going to be a DNV as he had that 'bollocks to the lot of them' look in his eyes by the end of the conversation. We all agreed to enjoy the free puppies if Corbyn wins. Apropos of nothing but thought I'd share for the sake of it,
My folks haven't voted. That's probably two less for Sarah Newton. They've gone on holiday and couldn't get a PV sorted out in time. But talking to them yesterday they weren't keen on May or Corbyn.
I'm still a NOTA and I'm tempted to abstain, but I've finally decided. To keep up my record of voting in every GE since I was eligible, I will vote for the candidate who is first in alphabetical order.
Unless it's a Green. I can stand Corbyn turning us into Venezuela, but I can't take Lucas taking us back into the stone age. Come January, those cave mouths don't half let the draught in.
It's clear some on here would like nothing better than to see the LDs turfed out of Parliament completely but everyone within the Party knows it's going to be a dog fight to save what we can.
The nadir in terms of seats and votes was 2.8% and 6 seats in 1951 followed by 7.5% and 6 seats in 1970. I suspect we won't go below the 1951 vote share but there's a real danger the party could be left with 1-3 MPs.
Would that be the end ? Hardly.
Once the Conservatives lurch into the long spell of mid-term unpopularity, there'll be plenty of council seats to take and constituencies to rebuild - looking forward to it.
But but but.... if the LDs fall to say 3 seats in a Tory dominated HoC and the moderates split from Jezza, will the desire to join up and be fish in the bigger joint pond be irresistable?
Don't worry - The Economist has endorsed the Lib Dems.....
It wasn’t quite as unwatchable as it threatened to be. It was good to be reminded that Tim Farron existed. He was quite good. His opening statement was the most straightforward. His pitch was a penny on income tax for the NHS and social care, and giving the people the final say on Brexit. His folksy relating of every question to his personal experience is easy to mock but an effective way of getting his message across.
But there were only two people in this debate, Jeremy Corbyn and Amber Rudd. Neither of them was very good. The Labour leader thought he had made his point by turning up. He made no reference to Theresa May’s absence in his opening statement. That seemed quite statesmanlike, but I assumed he was saving it up for later. He wasn’t. His was an underpowered performance in front of an audience that seemed ready to support him.
IF you take the £11bn the student loan is currently estimated to cost then 'assuming' 30m taxpayers, thats £336 it'll cost every tax payer. If you have only higher rate tax payers paying it, (which is about 4m people), then they'll have to pay £2,750 per year. Just for that one policy.
Labour will have, very quickly to start putting taxes up for more and more people.
That's not the only policy which needs paying for, every single Labour policy involves billions in additional spending and yet we're told that 2-3m higher and additional rate payers are going to shoulder the whole burden? It's madness.
Exactly. There simply in pure numbers aren't enough rich people to get large amounts of money from.
Yes, and they can't even count all higher rate payers since they have said it will be people earning £80k+ that will take the hit, there are surely fewer than 1m of them in the whole country. This is why they are looking at garden taxes and other such revenue raising measures, the capacity to raise that much money from so few (highly mobile) people doesn't exist.
So that's 0.9 million individuals on £80k or above, the average amount above being £42k.
If you took that entire £42k off every one of them - so that in effective you had a national maximum wage of £80k via a 100% income tax rate above that - you would raise £38 billion. That would not be enough to close the deficit from where we are, never mind if we also started spending more.
And of course if you tried to do this you would not raise a penny because if you are taxed at 100% above £x you will decline pay rises above £x.
The "rich" don't have enough income to pay for everything, which is why any government wanting to spend more would have to take whatever they have left of previous income. So wealth taxes.
There was some pond life here the other day speculating about the extent of the PM's appetite for sex. I thought it didn't get any nastier than that, but 100% ignorant speculation about the very recent death of a politician's 93 year old father wins at a canter. Euchhh. It's the sort of stuff you used to get on Guido before he banned non-registered commenters.
IF you take the £11bn the student loan is currently estimated to cost then 'assuming' 30m taxpayers, thats £336 it'll cost every tax payer. If you have only higher rate tax payers paying it, (which is about 4m people), then they'll have to pay £2,750 per year. Just for that one policy.
Labour will have, very quickly to start putting taxes up for more and more people.
There really is a massive tax bombshell under this Labour manifesto. So why aren't we hearing about it?
The only thing I can think is that May somehow wanted a non-partisan backing for her Brexit negotiations with Brussels, so didn't want to get into a party political election campaign. Which would be plain crazy.
There is a tax bombshell in the Tory manifesto, which btw is uncosted. The pledge not to increase taxes has been dropped, and the Chancellor tried to put up national insurance in the budget just a few weeks back.
It's clear some on here would like nothing better than to see the LDs turfed out of Parliament completely but everyone within the Party knows it's going to be a dog fight to save what we can.
The nadir in terms of seats and votes was 2.8% and 6 seats in 1951 followed by 7.5% and 6 seats in 1970. I suspect we won't go below the 1951 vote share but there's a real danger the party could be left with 1-3 MPs.
Would that be the end ? Hardly.
Once the Conservatives lurch into the long spell of mid-term unpopularity, there'll be plenty of council seats to take and constituencies to rebuild - looking forward to it.
Greens and UKIP survived with one or no MPs.
The Greens and UKIP had a very easy cause to rally around. Easy for people to understand and vote for. UKIP also had one of the best peacetime politicians leading them for the last 15 years. Like him or loathe him, Nigel has changed the face of this country.
The LDs are led by an over promoted parish councillor and their idea of liberalism isn't as easy to grasp. Especially today when liberal can be the SJW movement or even George Osborne.
Never trust anything written in the passive. Who's doing the telling? Lib Dems? Conservatives? Other journalists? Pollsters?
Farron being in trouble points towards Tory outperformance outside the cities.
It feels as though there are two different election campaigns going on. One on the doorstep, and one in the media/here/etc.
"So we have swingy polls, heightened media interest in the polls, frenzied analysis of the media interest and the polls... when the result was the same all along - The opinion polls, coverage of opinion polls, and reaction to coverage of opinion polls feed off each other to create an unrepresentative echo chamber. "
The polls are telling us something but it's not particularly clear what. I subscribe to the Martin Boon/isam theory that polling samples remain unrepresentative. The question is what can be done about that. I'm not sure that ICM's remedy is particularly effective either. Anyone who bets the house on one particular model is brave/foolhardy.
Annoyingly though, it's equally brave/foolhardy to bet the house based on experience on the doorstep in one particular area. This is an election for breaking down old coalitions and building up new coalitions, and Labour are probably going to win seats in some areas and lose seats in others.
Ultimately I'm of the @JackW school of thought that the Conservatives are well ahead in the polls and that ultimately will see them home very nicely indeed. But I'm a lot less certain of myself than usual. The voters are in a surly and strange mood at present. With the choice in front of them, who can blame them?
I suppose one thing the polls are telling us quite clearly is that there has been a large shift in opinion over the last few weeks, and that in itself makes the result more uncertain than usual.
Ireland had a basketcase economy that lasted sixty years. It was eventually rescued by the first wave of globalisation in the 1990's, when American companies were looking for a base in the EU and found Ireland, partly due to cultural links between the countries, as well as a pool of highly educated English speakers, benign tax rules and loads of Eurodosh.
That might apply to a few hectares in Dublin, money laundering, tax evasion, and shenanigans involving paperwork and companies such as Google. But only a few years ago a huge proportion of the Irish economy was in construction. Finance capital realised that a badly educated population (this is Ireland FFS) was highly amenable to promises of a new life in newly built houses financed with huge personal debt. They drooled all down their fangs at the opportunity.
About the only good side was that the thugs and wide boys who'd been making money out of the troubles moved into the profit-making areas that were opened up by the surge in debt, including construction. They didn't have to go around waving their shooters any more. Well, except for the occasional "tiger" robbery. Strange that the same word, "tiger", was used with an old-style gangster meaning and also to denote the debt-fuelled insanity whereby everyone was supposed to become a cappuccino drinker. Kind of like a leprechaun on cocaine. Except for bringing a welcome end to the troubles, the boom was an utter disaster for most people. Some of those houses have already started falling down.
You don't half write some rubbish. Ireland is undoubtedly mixed and Donegal is very different to Dublin but to suggest that the boom was an utter disaster for most people is fundamentally wrong.
The fact the entire fate of the nation for the following five years now seems to boil down to who performs best in a 90 minute TV debate seems ludicrous to me...
Unfortunately it seems we're stuck with them but all leaders should have the right not to do them if they want.
I don't find your argument convincing. Each major party has a platform and a leader whom the party wishes to become prime minister. Theresa May is a figure who is in effect rotting into the ground. Her main selling-point is that she will supposedly be tough in Brexit negotiations with EU27, yet she can't cope with going to a debate with opponents who belong to the same country as herself! Not only that but she showed signs of cracking up mentally when she was asked by journalists why she didn't participate.
Almost the whole of the Tory campaign has been viciously focused on personally attacking the leader of the opposition, including by telling lies about him, and she - the person with whom the buck is supposed to stop in the Tory party - hasn't got the guts to face him in public. It's all right the idiot saying she faced him all the time in PMQs but she's paid to do that.
As for her "individual rights" as a person, sure, but running the country is supposed to be for the benefit of 60 million people. It isn't like managing a private garden. It's supposed to be a position of social responsibility. Those of us in the electorate have the right to expect decent leadership and also to expect the maintenance or improvement of our social fabric - and we have the right to vote against the void of leadership and the assault on our social fabric that this incompetent woman and her rapacious party represent.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with considering nationalisation for the railways. The UK's busiest railway is already nationalised. And many franchises are nationalised to foreign powers. Franchising simply has not worked – no-one can say what it is for. It's expensive and fragmented. The public want one arse to kick. Public ownership and concessions should be readily considered.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with considering nationalisation for the railways. The UK's busiest railway is already nationalised. And many franchises are nationalised to foreign powers. Franchising simply has not worked – no-one can say what it is for.
What is a bank robbery for? What was privatisation for in Russia? Of course rail - and utilities too - should be nationalised. Nationalised by the British government I mean.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with considering nationalisation for the railways. The UK's busiest railway is already nationalised. And many franchises are nationalised to foreign powers. Franchising simply has not worked – no-one can say what it is for. It's expensive and fragmented. The public want one arse to kick. Public ownership and concessions should be readily considered.
There's nothing wrong with considering it. Such consideration should take account of how rubbish BR was, and particularly, how rubbish customer service was under BR - to the extent that they did't even recognise the concept of a customer; merely a person to be conveyed.
That's not to say nothing could be better on the rails but both history and logic suggest that companies overseen by an effective independent regulator are likely to be more responsive to rail customer preferences than a government subject to many more calls on its time and money and more susceptible to special interest lobbying would be.
Never trust anything written in the passive. Who's doing the telling? Lib Dems? Conservatives? Other journalists? Pollsters?
Farron being in trouble points towards Tory outperformance outside the cities.
It feels as though there are two different election campaigns going on. One on the doorstep, and one in the media/here/etc.
"So we have swingy polls, heightened media interest in the polls, frenzied analysis of the media interest and the polls... when the result was the same all along - The opinion polls, coverage of opinion polls, and reaction to coverage of opinion polls feed off each other to create an unrepresentative echo chamber. "
The polls are telling us something but it's not particularly clear what. I subscribe to the Martin Boon/isam theory that polling samples remain unrepresentative. The question is what can be done about that. I'm not sure that ICM's remedy is particularly effective either. Anyone who bets the house on one particular model is brave/foolhardy.
Annoyingly though, it's equally brave/foolhardy to bet the house based on experience on the doorstep in one particular area. This is an election for breaking down old coalitions and building up new coalitions, and Labour are probably going to win seats in some areas and lose seats in others.
Ultimately I'm of the @JackW school of thought that the Conservatives are well ahead in the polls and that ultimately will see them home very nicely indeed. But I'm a lot less certain of myself than usual. The voters are in a surly and strange mood at present. With the choice in front of them, who can blame them?
The only thing I am certain of is that the LDs are screwed and I wish I had taken more of the 0-9 @10 when I was originally building my position
Without that the economy would be booming, Corbyn and his thugs would be an irrelevance, and we would welcome our European friends as allies against the insanity of Trump
Hey ho...
It is exceedingly difficult not to agree. And now erstwhile Leavers are cacking themselves.
We have to take our pleasures where we find them.
@Indigo is already abroad, Max has left, and now @Casino is thinking of fucking off.
At this rate there won't be any PB Leavers left living in the UK.
Just Tyndall in his fortress in Lincolnshire having to pop out and pick the sprouts from time to time before they rot on the stem.
Mr Casino is going??? I am shocked!
It's the election of a dogmatically Marxist Corbyn/McDonnell led Government that would lead me to seek to work and live overseas, not Brexit.
As a.
As has been pointed out by @Scott_P, it is precisely the vote for Brexit that has brought this about. You thought you would be untouched by Brexit but you didn't realise what you have opened the door to.
People want to tell someone to fuck off and Brexit allowed them to do that. They now like the feeling and now they are telling you to fuck off. And it seems that you will do as they say.
I think there is an appetite out there of those who voted Remain to pin any subsequent woe on the Brexit vote.
I never thought I'd be "untouched" by Brexit. There's this belief out there that those that voted Leave were all totally ignorant of the potential consequences.
I wasn't. And I'd hope you wouldn't insult my intelligence by suggesting I was.
I voted Brexit in the full knowledge of the risks of a mild recession, economic shocks and geopolitical risks to the UK because I judged that it was now or never for self-governance, the path of the EU to federalism was clear, and that was more important than the money.
Others disagreed, including you, and that's fair enough.
No-one was talking about anything other than the Conservatives in Government for over a decade even a month ago. And I wouldn't even consider* leaving if a rational Labour Government was in power pre or post Brexit, it's just Corbyn scares the crap out of me.
So please let's the leave the "told you sos", "suck it ups" and "you voted for its" at home
(*although I did toy with idea when I thought a Lab-LD coalition might be a flier at GE2010)
Without that the economy would be booming, Corbyn and his thugs would be an irrelevance, and we would welcome our European friends as allies against the insanity of Trump
Hey ho...
It is exceedingly difficult not to agree. And now erstwhile Leavers are cacking themselves.
We have to take our pleasures where we find them.
@Indigo is already abroad, Max has left, and now @Casino is thinking of fucking off.
At this rate there won't be any PB Leavers left living in the UK.
Just Tyndall in his fortress in Lincolnshire having to pop out and pick the sprouts from time to time before they rot on the stem.
Mr Casino is going??? I am shocked!
It's the election of a dogmatically Marxist Corbyn/McDonnell led Government that would lead me to seek to work and live overseas, not Brexit.
As a working full-time professional earning £70k-£80k, and about to start a family and buying a family home, it's precisely my money he'd be after.
I don't see Brexit and Conservative Government until (hopefully) GE2027 as any threat to my livelihood at all, although I know that disappoints some Remainers.
I felt the same way about Gordon Brown back in 1997 when it became clear that he was out for a money grab.
I should be clear that my main antipathy to Brexit is an economic one. I believe it will have a horrendous impact on the UK economy and all this talk of "short term pain for long term gain" is myopic at best. What is "short term"? 5 years? 10 years? 50 years? In terms of UK history 50 years is nothing. Any gains might not come about until after I and my children are dead but we will be here for all the problems and hardships.
I do not believe that the pain will be worth the gain.
Thanks Beverely. I disagree with that assessment, but I respect your view and that's fair enough.
It's clear some on here would like nothing better than to see the LDs turfed out of Parliament completely but everyone within the Party knows it's going to be a dog fight to save what we can.
The nadir in terms of seats and votes was 2.8% and 6 seats in 1951 followed by 7.5% and 6 seats in 1970. I suspect we won't go below the 1951 vote share but there's a real danger the party could be left with 1-3 MPs.
Would that be the end ? Hardly.
Once the Conservatives lurch into the long spell of mid-term unpopularity, there'll be plenty of council seats to take and constituencies to rebuild - looking forward to it.
Greens and UKIP survived with one or no MPs.
The Greens and UKIP had a very easy cause to rally around. Easy for people to understand and vote for. UKIP also had one of the best peacetime politicians leading them for the last 15 years. Like him or loathe him, Nigel has changed the face of this country.
The LDs are led by an over promoted parish councillor and their idea of liberalism isn't as easy to grasp. Especially today when liberal can be the SJW movement or even George Osborne.
Nor is their idea of democracy when it involves ignoring the electorate.
Farron seems reduced to 'the rest are rubbish' as an argument, which if it can't be made to work now, does beg the question as to whether the Lib Dems can ever again make it work.
It wasn’t quite as unwatchable as it threatened to be. It was good to be reminded that Tim Farron existed. He was quite good. His opening statement was the most straightforward. His pitch was a penny on income tax for the NHS and social care, and giving the people the final say on Brexit. His folksy relating of every question to his personal experience is easy to mock but an effective way of getting his message across.
But there were only two people in this debate, Jeremy Corbyn and Amber Rudd. Neither of them was very good. The Labour leader thought he had made his point by turning up. He made no reference to Theresa May’s absence in his opening statement. That seemed quite statesmanlike, but I assumed he was saving it up for later. He wasn’t. His was an underpowered performance in front of an audience that seemed ready to support him.
Comments
Mrs May is going to win a majority.
The only question is how large it is.
I happen to think general election TV debates are terrible and never really agreed with them even back in 2010 so I'm pleased that Theresa May stuck to her guns on this rather than dancing to the broadcasters tune.
The media and broadcasters want debates for their own entertainment and amusement but it has very little to do with governing.
The fact the entire fate of the nation for the following five years now seems to boil down to who performs best in a 90 minute TV debate seems ludicrous to me...
Unfortunately it seems we're stuck with them but all leaders should have the right not to do them if they want.
According to https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/595165/NS_Table_3_1a_1415.xlsx
only the top 3% of taxpayers earned more than £80k in 2014-5. Probably that is much the same today.
According to https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/616434/Table_2.1.xlsx
there are 30.3 million taxpayers.
So that's 0.9 million individuals on £80k or above, the average amount above being £42k.
If you took that entire £42k off every one of them - so that in effective you had a national maximum wage of £80k via a 100% income tax rate above that - you would raise £38 billion. That would not be enough to close the deficit from where we are, never mind if we also started spending more.
And of course if you tried to do this you would not raise a penny because if you are taxed at 100% above £x you will decline pay rises above £x.
The "rich" don't have enough income to pay for everything, which is why any government wanting to spend more would have to take whatever they have left of previous income. So wealth taxes.
NEW THREAD
The LDs are led by an over promoted parish councillor and their idea of liberalism isn't as easy to grasp. Especially today when liberal can be the SJW movement or even George Osborne.
St Helens South - a mere 20,000 labour majority. I expect my vote could tip the balance.
Edit: If there's an Anthony Aardvaark standing, he's got my vote.
You don't half write some rubbish. Ireland is undoubtedly mixed and Donegal is very different to Dublin but to suggest that the boom was an utter disaster for most people is fundamentally wrong.
Almost the whole of the Tory campaign has been viciously focused on personally attacking the leader of the opposition, including by telling lies about him, and she - the person with whom the buck is supposed to stop in the Tory party - hasn't got the guts to face him in public. It's all right the idiot saying she faced him all the time in PMQs but she's paid to do that.
As for her "individual rights" as a person, sure, but running the country is supposed to be for the benefit of 60 million people. It isn't like managing a private garden. It's supposed to be a position of social responsibility. Those of us in the electorate have the right to expect decent leadership and also to expect the maintenance or improvement of our social fabric - and we have the right to vote against the void of leadership and the assault on our social fabric that this incompetent woman and her rapacious party represent.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with considering nationalisation for the railways. The UK's busiest railway is already nationalised. And many franchises are nationalised to foreign powers. Franchising simply has not worked – no-one can say what it is for. It's expensive and fragmented. The public want one arse to kick. Public ownership and concessions should be readily considered.
That's not to say nothing could be better on the rails but both history and logic suggest that companies overseen by an effective independent regulator are likely to be more responsive to rail customer preferences than a government subject to many more calls on its time and money and more susceptible to special interest lobbying would be.
I never thought I'd be "untouched" by Brexit. There's this belief out there that those that voted Leave were all totally ignorant of the potential consequences.
I wasn't. And I'd hope you wouldn't insult my intelligence by suggesting I was.
I voted Brexit in the full knowledge of the risks of a mild recession, economic shocks and geopolitical risks to the UK because I judged that it was now or never for self-governance, the path of the EU to federalism was clear, and that was more important than the money.
Others disagreed, including you, and that's fair enough.
No-one was talking about anything other than the Conservatives in Government for over a decade even a month ago. And I wouldn't even consider* leaving if a rational Labour Government was in power pre or post Brexit, it's just Corbyn scares the crap out of me.
So please let's the leave the "told you sos", "suck it ups" and "you voted for its" at home
(*although I did toy with idea when I thought a Lab-LD coalition might be a flier at GE2010)
Farron seems reduced to 'the rest are rubbish' as an argument, which if it can't be made to work now, does beg the question as to whether the Lib Dems can ever again make it work.
The second one pays an extra £285 per year.
Looks fairly progressive to me.
(for each it's 1% of the amount they earn over the existing £11,500 per year threshold)