Free schools? Free schools and free healthcare? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit and £2,000 a year for childcare costs? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit, £2k childcare costs, first car, house deposit, state-sponsored junior ISA?
I'm not saying charge for education and health, I'm saying there's a limit, and it's taking the piss to give everyone (including the rather wealthy) £2,000, if they happen to have kids.
Seems like the budget was a bit of a fail if people would rather talk about EdM.
It's more a case of the same people who always say that Ed is crap saying that Ed is crap again. It's a subject they enjoy raising and they will do it at every opportunity. In the real world, of course, almost no-one watched the speech and almost everyone who did will forget what Ed said by tomorrow, just as every other LOTO's response to a budget speech has been forgotten within 24 hours since time immemorial
That is mostly true, although there are a few of the not normal suspects saying Ed did not do well, but it is also true that 'no-one watched it/cares about it' is the stock response to the stock attack, and since all sides engage in that game, they cannot very well complain about people doing it. It's like football players generally not showing too much irritation when some opposition player milks a foul and lies prone for ages when they are clearly fine - since they all do it, they have to pay the other the courtesy of treating the theatre as though it were genuine. So one cannot pretend that 'Ed is crap' would not have been trotted out regardless, but neither can we pretend that the 'It doesn't matter' would not have been trotted out regardless whenever he has been crap.
Again, both points are true - about hardly anyone seeing it and most forgetting it - but if we follow the logic that that means any criticism of what he did say by the usual crowd is meaningless, every single speech and comment in the Commons or otherwise would mean nothing at all, because almost no-one sees or remembers them. I do pay attention to politics more than most people - I'm writing this comment for example - and I cannot remember the last speech by either Cameron or Miliband, or even when they occurred.
It all adds to the narrative though, and so while not significant on its own unless a truly remarkable failure - like the Omnishambles - events of today and whether Ed was crap or not are still worthy of note. It took several years for the Tories to gain a perceptable aura of incompetence that led to people who did not vote Labour to take note of it, and it took many a small event to contribute to that.
Reading that post was like riding a logic rollercoaster @kle4
Thanks?
I like to let a point flow as it occurs to me. It doesn't always lead to tonal or logical consistency I will admit.
It was meant as a compliment - I just love the detailed analysis, even if the Loto's response is immaterial, it makes for a good read.
You appear to be assuming that everyone is either a starving food banker or a Tory toff lighting cigars with burning £50s, and ignore the millions of hard working savers somewhere in between. Many of them will be reading tonight's headlines and thinking 'at last, there's something for us'.
Quite right, and Labour's response is IMHO a major blunder. What Labour are basically saying is that 'anyone who benefits from this budget is very rich'. Lots of people who don't consider themselves anything like rich benefit from it - and they are going to think 'Hang on, that means Labour want to target ordinary people like me'.
Not sure thats the message, but i am sure that many PB Tories such as your good self don't get that because you and those in your contact circle and doing OK that most people are the same. And all that is needed politically is for the t ch to be seen to get significantly more benefits than the majority to continue the established Tories out of touch the few not the many narrative which began with the omnishambles budget 2 years ago. Politics is rarely about hard facts and figures - Brown announced the same cash repeatedly (Osborne too), the government keep being told off for statistics which have more basis in IDS's beliefs than fact. What sticks are perceptions.
And like it or not there is this out of touch perception the Tories can't shake off. A budget that mainly benefits the well off as starving children get paraded on sport relief isn't going to change this much.
I agree with Richard, there will be loads of middle ground people, floating voters if you like, who will now be of the opinion that Labour class them as rich when they are far from it.
Out of interest, as you keep mentioning the rich what exactly is your definition of rich, because it's coming across as someone who has a fiver left over at the end if the month.
The left would still like to believe that the only way of making the poor richer is by making the rich poorer. In the same way that actually to become rich is, for them, the most egregious class treachery.
Seems like the budget was a bit of a fail if people would rather talk about EdM.
It's more a case of the same people who always say that Ed is crap saying that Ed is crap again. It's a subject they enjoy raising and they will do it at every opportunity. In the real world, of course, almost no-one watched the speech and almost everyone who did will forget what Ed said by tomorrow, just as every other LOTO's response to a budget speech has been forgotten within 24 hours since time immemorial
That is mostly true, although there are a few of the not normal suspects saying Ed did not do well, but it is also true that 'no-one watched it/cares about it' is the stock response to the stock attack, and since all sides engage in that game, they cannot very well complain about people doing it. It's like football players generally not showing too much irritation when some opposition player milks a foul and lies prone for ages when they are clearly fine - since they all do it, they have to pay the other the courtesy of treating the theatre as though it were genuine. So one cannot pretend that 'Ed is crap' would not have been trotted out regardless, but neither can we pretend that the 'It doesn't matter' would not have been trotted out regardless whenever he has been crap.
Again, both points are true - about hardly anyone seeing it and most forgetting it - but if we follow the logic that that means any criticism of what he did say by the usual crowd is meaningless, every single speech and comment in the Commons or otherwise would mean nothing at all, because almost no-one sees or remembers them. I do pay attention to politics more than most people - I'm writing this comment for example - and I cannot remember the last speech by either Cameron or Miliband, or even when they occurred.
It all adds to the narrative though, and so while not significant on its own unless a truly remarkable failure - like the Omnishambles - events of today and whether Ed was crap or not are still worthy of note. It took several years for the Tories to gain a perceptable aura of incompetence that led to people who did not vote Labour to take note of it, and it took many a small event to contribute to that.
Reading that post was like riding a logic rollercoaster @kle4
Thanks?
I like to let a point flow as it occurs to me. It doesn't always lead to tonal or logical consistency I will admit.
It was meant as a compliment - I just love the detailed analysis, even if the Loto's response is immaterial, it makes for a good read.
As repeating that same joke ad infinitum is acceptable on here (cf Arse, Basil), allow me:
Dan Hodges tempering his earlier posts about Ed being crap in order to magnify just how crap Ed was today is... [drum roll]... a disaster for Ed Miliband!
How very dare you Madam.
I'm especially fond of Basil whose regular and usually nocturnal activities bring joy to the wider PB fellowship.
As for my ARSE (capitals please) it's an old favourite on PB and whose emissions have brought a little mirth and more importantly great profit to its admirers. You'd be wise to become an admirer like many before you.
Free schools? Free schools and free healthcare? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit and £2,000 a year for childcare costs? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit, £2k childcare costs, first car, house deposit, state-sponsored junior ISA?
I'm not saying charge for education and health, I'm saying there's a limit, and it's taking the piss to give everyone (including the rather wealthy) £2,000, if they happen to have kids.
It's a debate worth having I think, but one needs to tread carefully with it, so carefully I doubt such a debate would happen.
As repeating that same joke ad infinitum is acceptable on here (cf Arse, Basil), allow me:
Dan Hodges tempering his earlier posts about Ed being crap in order to magnify just how crap Ed was today is... [drum roll]... a disaster for Ed Miliband!
How very dare you Madam.
I'm especially fond of Basil whose regular and usually nocturnal activities bring joy to the wider PB fellowship.
As for my ARSE (capitals please) it's an old favourite on PB and whose emissions have brought a little mirth and more importantly great profit to its admirers. You'd be wise to become an admirer like many before you.
Free schools? Free schools and free healthcare? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit and £2,000 a year for childcare costs? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit, £2k childcare costs, first car, house deposit, state-sponsored junior ISA?
I'm not saying charge for education and health, I'm saying there's a limit, and it's taking the piss to give everyone (including the rather wealthy) £2,000, if they happen to have kids.
In France, your top rate of tax declines with how many kids you have: so (and these are off the top of my head), no kids 55%, right through to four kids plus 38%.
The left would still like to believe that the only way of making the poor richer is by making the rich poorer. In the same way that actually to become rich is, for them, the most egregious class treachery.
Well the rich have made themselves richer by making the poor poorer. The concentration of money extracted from mass circulation to the top 1%, then the top 0.1%, then the top 0.01% is staggering. Money doesn't trickle down so it has to be pulled down - I'd be happy to see sizable taxes raised on assets of the oligarch class the problem is that they have done the same asset stripping in most western economies which is how we got into this mess - so unless the levy was coordinated they would just run.
So if we can't extract pilfered cash from the elite what else could we do? If you don't care about a pound that's already worth 93% less than its 1973 equivalent you could print money and give it to people to spend - call it "economic stimulus". Except that all the money printed - and the Americans can't stop - goes into the financial markets to get hoovered up by the elite as well.
I might be a pinko commienazi, but I am also a capitalist involved in capitalistic enterprise. But I know that punters are increasingly broke and the econony is increasingly dead and the only thing that breathes any life into it are the same things that allowed the elie to break it - money printing, housing bubble. I want people to have money in their pocket to buy my goods and having broken the neoliberal system no one seems to know what to do. To be fair to Osborne his "the solution is to make the same mistakes again" plan isn't far removed from Labour's "make the same mistakes but in a different order" plan.
Final point. We need an economy that's not reliant on financial services and shopping. Or at least have financial services which invest and shopping where the products we buy were grown or made here. That's a start. Dig for victory and buy British.
A repeat performance of the JackARSE prediction methodology has been requested.
Please do not be put off by the rigourous 'methodology' JackW uses in his predictions which are all self-evidently based on "old man methane" to produce his 'numbers'.
I doubt it. There is a wide range of exemptions on age, income and medical grounds (including some anomalies, for example my mate who has type 2 diabetes gets his medication free but I as a kidney patient don't). Additionally, regular users can get a season ticket at greatly reduced rates (I take five different drugs a day, each normally chargeable at £7.85 per month, but only pay £104 a year). So in reality the only people who pay full rate for prescriptions are the able in work able-bodied who need some medicine nor and again. Whether the charge is £7.85 or eight-and-a-bit quid ain't going to make much difference, though I dare say some will try and make a fuss about it. Grinding the faces of the poor etc.
Comments
Free schools? Free schools and free healthcare? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit and £2,000 a year for childcare costs? Free schools, healthcare, child benefit, £2k childcare costs, first car, house deposit, state-sponsored junior ISA?
I'm not saying charge for education and health, I'm saying there's a limit, and it's taking the piss to give everyone (including the rather wealthy) £2,000, if they happen to have kids.
I missed your McARSE the other morning, as had patients to see.
Would you mind a repeat performance?
YES 40% (+4) .. NO 60% (-4) .. 79% turnout.
So if we can't extract pilfered cash from the elite what else could we do? If you don't care about a pound that's already worth 93% less than its 1973 equivalent you could print money and give it to people to spend - call it "economic stimulus". Except that all the money printed - and the Americans can't stop - goes into the financial markets to get hoovered up by the elite as well.
I might be a pinko commienazi, but I am also a capitalist involved in capitalistic enterprise. But I know that punters are increasingly broke and the econony is increasingly dead and the only thing that breathes any life into it are the same things that allowed the elie to break it - money printing, housing bubble. I want people to have money in their pocket to buy my goods and having broken the neoliberal system no one seems to know what to do. To be fair to Osborne his "the solution is to make the same mistakes again" plan isn't far removed from Labour's "make the same mistakes but in a different order" plan.
Final point. We need an economy that's not reliant on financial services and shopping. Or at least have financial services which invest and shopping where the products we buy were grown or made here. That's a start. Dig for victory and buy British.
Please do not be put off by the rigourous 'methodology' JackW uses in his predictions which are all self-evidently based on "old man methane" to produce his 'numbers'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QksNZ7HSgF8
So you can see clearly how JackARSE came up with his' figures'.
YES - Fart% (+Plop) .. NO - Fart% (-Plop) .. turnout - Parp!
As JackW would put it as he strains to predict things, a pleasure.
I doubt it. There is a wide range of exemptions on age, income and medical grounds (including some anomalies, for example my mate who has type 2 diabetes gets his medication free but I as a kidney patient don't). Additionally, regular users can get a season ticket at greatly reduced rates (I take five different drugs a day, each normally chargeable at £7.85 per month, but only pay £104 a year). So in reality the only people who pay full rate for prescriptions are the able in work able-bodied who need some medicine nor and again. Whether the charge is £7.85 or eight-and-a-bit quid ain't going to make much difference, though I dare say some will try and make a fuss about it. Grinding the faces of the poor etc.