politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Extraordinarily both CON and LAB fall to new lows on the Be
The two charts above represent betting developments that have never happened before. Both the chances of a CON and a LAB majority at GE15 on the betting exchange have moved to new lows together.
Comments
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Rochester TV debate on iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04plxjz/south-east-today-the-battle-for-rochester-and-strood0 -
"The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
Poor old unpopular Mr Farage will simply have to get by on a 'base' comprising the English and Welsh people minus the establishment.
Perhaps he'll struggle on..0 -
Psephologically speaking it's all rather exciting - and your thread header simply mentions political developments in England. The changes in Scotland are even more dramatic.0
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Can't say the man doesn't have balls..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11222272/Nigel-Farage-to-be-interviewed-by-Goggleboxs-posh-couple.html
"The new programme, At Home with Dom and Steph, will be based in Mr and Mrs Parker's bed and breakfast in Kent, in the constituency of South Thanet where Farage will be standing in his bid to become an MP in the 2015 General Election."
"The couple rose to fame on Gogglebox, the cult series which features members of the public commentating on television from their own sofas"0 -
I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.0 -
Meanwhile, my certainty in an outright Conservative win continues to rise. I put it over 80% now.
My only concern is if UKIP gain traction post-Rochester, but I think minds and hearts will be turning to Christmas, not politics.0 -
I'd have thought Osborne's skating on thin ice on the economy might have been a concern, but there you go.audreyanne said:Meanwhile, my certainty in an outright Conservative win continues to rise. I put it over 80% now.
My only concern is if UKIP gain traction post-Rochester, but I think minds and hearts will be turning to Christmas, not politics.0 -
I agree Edmund. Although it is relatively easy to make the case for a hung Parliament these markets seem grossly oversold. The likelihood is that there will be fewer not Tory + Labour MPs in the next Parliament than there is in this one making a majority for one or the other more likely.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
Which way it may ultimately swing is still up for grabs.0 -
For those interested in the gogglebox phenomenon:Indigo said:Can't say the man doesn't have balls..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11222272/Nigel-Farage-to-be-interviewed-by-Goggleboxs-posh-couple.html
"The new programme, At Home with Dom and Steph, will be based in Mr and Mrs Parker's bed and breakfast in Kent, in the constituency of South Thanet where Farage will be standing in his bid to become an MP in the 2015 General Election."
"The couple rose to fame on Gogglebox, the cult series which features members of the public commentating on television from their own sofas"
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/gogglebox-the-most-humanising-show-on-tv/16150#.VGGsQ8lFCBY
I have found it interesting, when on my rare forays into the world of TV.
Having Nigel interviewed by the gay couple in Brighton may have been more interesting, or the pair of Brixton ladies!0 -
Perhaps Audreyanne would like to produce some yellow boxes to demonstrate Boy George's genius?Alanbrooke said:
I'd have thought Osborne's skating on thin ice on the economy might have been a concern, but there you go.audreyanne said:Meanwhile, my certainty in an outright Conservative win continues to rise. I put it over 80% now.
My only concern is if UKIP gain traction post-Rochester, but I think minds and hearts will be turning to Christmas, not politics.0 -
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.0 -
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
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@montie: Ed Miliband's ratings at a new low in Guardian/ICM poll http://t.co/61usBUy11E0
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Morning all.
“Another hung parliament is looking even more likely”
Indeed. – It would be interesting to see a UK map of Betfair punters to see how opinions differ by region and where the betting hotspots are. – No doubt Bedford would figure quite strongly.
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Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds.0 -
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.0 -
Have Labour increased their support?anotherDave said:
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.
We could very well be looking at an election result where they poll worse (under Miliband) than Brown. Meanwhile, if the election can be framed as a choice between two Prime Ministerial candidates, one of whom is totally unpalatable to the electorate, we could see a 1992-style result all over again: swing voters turning out in droves to stop Miliband.
You mustn't be too myopic about the current headline poll numbers. Look at the fundamentals.
The question is whether the current betting odds are value. I think they are.0 -
class="Quote" rel="OblitusSumMe">
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
Question is, will UKIP take more seats from the at Tories than the SNP can take from Labour. Labour also faces a similar threat from UKIP but not as 1/2 as much as the Tories. Given that Tories are like hens teeth in Scotland already I think on balmace Labour are probably under more threat in these scenarios mainly because of SNP rather than UKIP.
Did I mention the Greens?0 -
Lab to score lower vote share than 2010 is 2/1 with ShadsyCasino_Royale said:
Have Labour increased their support?anotherDave said:
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.
We could very well be looking at an election result where they poll worse (under Miliband) than Brown. Meanwhile, if the election can be framed as a choice between two Prime Ministerial candidates, one of whom is totally unpalatable to the electorate, we could see a 1992-style result all over again: swing voters turning out in droves to stop Miliband.
You mustn't be too myopic about the current headline poll numbers. Look at the fundamentals.
The question is whether the current betting odds are value. I think they are.0 -
At this point I think it looks quite likely that all three of the "main" parties will lose support at the next GE. Yet I find it hard to see the Tories not losing at least a dozen or so marginals to Labour - they are simply losing too many voters to UKIP.anotherDave said:
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.0 -
Pretty meagre choice, if the results came out as you suggest how would you put together a viable coalition?Indigo said:
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
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This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.0 -
"The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
Um, except Nigel Farage is very popular for a politician, with more approving of him and less disapproving him than any other leader.0 -
I don't expect 2015 to be anything like 1992. 2010, when neither party enthused the electorate seems a more likely model.Casino_Royale said:
Have Labour increased their support?anotherDave said:
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.
We could very well be looking at an election result where they poll worse (under Miliband) than Brown. Meanwhile, if the election can be framed as a choice between two Prime Ministerial candidates, one of whom is totally unpalatable to the electorate, we could see a 1992-style result all over again: swing voters turning out in droves to stop Miliband.
You mustn't be too myopic about the current headline poll numbers. Look at the fundamentals.
The question is whether the current betting odds are value. I think they are.0 -
I will be very surprised if there is more than 5 UKIP MPs and maybe 10 additional SNP MPs. As I expect there to be roughly 30 fewer Lib Dems logic indicates there will be roughly 15 more Tory or Labour MPs. Doesn't make a hung Parliament impossible but a 60%+ chance? I just don't see it.0
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The real choices? You mean between Tweedledum and Tweedledee?logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.0 -
About the only thing such a Parliament could do would be to repeal the 5-year Act. Unless a Grand Coalition was formed. Why is it that they do them in Germany but we don't?logical_song said:
Pretty meagre choice, if the results came out as you suggest how would you put together a viable coalition?Indigo said:
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
It won't happen and I'm sticking with my 35-25-23, and the SNP to out-poll the LibDems. The only seat predictions I'll make are for Cameron to hold Witney, UKIP to hold its seats and the Greens to hold the Pavilion...
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UKIP's potential with current-Con supporters is the most interesting possibility to me. A third of current-Con, ~10% of the voters, would switch to UKIP if they thought UKIP could win in their constituency.OblitusSumMe said:
At this point I think it looks quite likely that all three of the "main" parties will lose support at the next GE. Yet I find it hard to see the Tories not losing at least a dozen or so marginals to Labour - they are simply losing too many voters to UKIP.anotherDave said:
The Conservatives failed to win a majority in 2010. Since 2010 Labour have increased their support, and the Conservatives have lost support.Casino_Royale said:Tory majority at 6/1 is value IMHO. It should be a 25% shot, not <15%.
As antifrank posted yesterday, it's table 4 in this poll that provides the most sobering evidence for Labour:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ANP-summary-1411102.pdf
On a forced choice Cameron/Conservatives beat Miliband/Labour 49% to 38% amongst all voters, and 53% to 36% amongst swing voters. For UKIP voters, the split is 55% to 31%. Further, Table 3 shows that if it can be made into a duel in the marginals it'll be a "head" (Conservative) vs. "heart" (Labour) contest.
Why does that matter?
Table 2 shows that 50% of voters are yet to make up their minds. </p>
The Conservatives winning a majority looks like a non-starter to me.0 -
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.0
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Ed out before election out to 5/1 (from 7/2 last night) with ladbrokes0
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Yes, it becomes a lot easier to see the Conservatives ending up as the largest party in a Hung Parliament for that reason. Tory majority? More likely than a Labour majority, perhaps, but not more likely than the current Betfair odds in my view.Moses_ said:
Question is, will UKIP take more seats from the at Tories than the SNP can take from Labour. Labour also faces a similar threat from UKIP but not as 1/2 as much as the Tories. Given that Tories are like hens teeth in Scotland already I think on balmace Labour are probably under more threat in these scenarios mainly because of SNP rather than UKIP.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
Did I mention the Greens?
If I was betting I think the value would be in laying a Labour majority rather than backing a Hung Parliament, though. Miliband + SNP + UKIP = Feck all chance of a Labour majority in my view.
The Conservatives start from a position close enough to a majority, and with a windfall in Liberal Democrat seats expected, that they only need to out-perform expectations in a small number of marginals to squeak a majority.0 -
Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!0 -
We had the polling yesterday that showed that UKIP voters were the least likely to change their minds before polling day.logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling leading up to the spring elections in 2013 and 2014 - so why not 2015 too?
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling as a result of defections and by-election triumphs - with another by-election win quite likely in nine days.
I suppose it's possible Farage might be caught buying quinoa from Waitrose in the next few months, but on the balance of probabilities the prospects look good for UKIP at the moment.0 -
We have also seen UKIP lose almost every council by-election it has tried to defend over the past year. I would not be surprised to see Douglas Carswell as the UKIP presence in the HoC by June next year sitting on his own.OblitusSumMe said:
We had the polling yesterday that showed that UKIP voters were the least likely to change their minds before polling day.logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling leading up to the spring elections in 2013 and 2014 - so why not 2015 too?
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling as a result of defections and by-election triumphs - with another by-election win quite likely in nine days.
I suppose it's possible Farage might be caught buying quinoa from Waitrose in the next few months, but on the balance of probabilities the prospects look good for UKIP at the moment.0 -
The 30 MPs missing from the result might help.logical_song said:
Pretty meagre choice, if the results came out as you suggest how would you put together a viable coalition?Indigo said:
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.0 -
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
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Winning seats, as opposed to winning lots of votes but coming second, is hard in Westminster elections, so that result is possible. Personally I think >10 seats for UKIP is more likely than 1 seat alone.Easterross said:
We have also seen UKIP lose almost every council by-election it has tried to defend over the past year. I would not be surprised to see Douglas Carswell as the UKIP presence in the HoC by June next year sitting on his own.OblitusSumMe said:
We had the polling yesterday that showed that UKIP voters were the least likely to change their minds before polling day.logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling leading up to the spring elections in 2013 and 2014 - so why not 2015 too?
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling as a result of defections and by-election triumphs - with another by-election win quite likely in nine days.
I suppose it's possible Farage might be caught buying quinoa from Waitrose in the next few months, but on the balance of probabilities the prospects look good for UKIP at the moment.0 -
The Northern Irish Parties and the One seat parties, yes I am sure they will make things much clearer ;-)OblitusSumMe said:
The 30 MPs missing from the result might help.logical_song said:
Pretty meagre choice, if the results came out as you suggest how would you put together a viable coalition?Indigo said:
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
0 -
Indeed.Innocent_Abroad said:
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
And after the oil revenue started drying up governments borrowed a trillion pounds to keep the show going for another decade.
All the establishment parties have to offer is more magic money tree promises and a forelock tugging obsequiousness to the super rich.
0 -
I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be0 -
But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
0 -
The CBI hit a new low yesterday by asking for more tax credits for child care. May if they just paid their employees better or got their tax avoiding members to chip in the problem would go away.another_richard said:
Indeed.Innocent_Abroad said:
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
And after the oil revenue started drying up governments borrowed a trillion pounds to keep the show going for another decade.
All the establishment parties have to offer is more magic money tree promises and a forelock tugging obsequiousness to the super rich.0 -
Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
0 -
It's pretty damn Trotskyish to demand to be let in to people's homes to see how many rooms they have, and then tax them because they're not using it for the required uses.Innocent_Abroad said:That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all.
0 -
Innocent_Abroad said:
But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.0 -
I've heard George Osborne called many things, but Trotsky is new to me.Socrates said:
It's pretty damn Trotskyish to demand to be let in to people's homes to see how many rooms they have, and then tax them because they're not using it for the required uses.Innocent_Abroad said:That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all.
0 -
The Conservative primary was about as 'open' as a Ferdinand Marcos election.Roger said:I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be
It seems to have been a typical Grant Schapps/Michael Green/Sebastian Fox idea.
0 -
You - and Socrates - between you make my point. What's (allegedly) an economic imperative is a political impossibility. So if it is an imperative we'll have to get rid of democracy. Which only works when living standards are rising.Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
0 -
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
You expect CBI members to pay more when they can demand that someone else does ?Alanbrooke said:
The CBI hit a new low yesterday by asking for more tax credits for child care. May if they just paid their employees better or got their tax avoiding members to chip in the problem would go away.another_richard said:
Indeed.Innocent_Abroad said:
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
And after the oil revenue started drying up governments borrowed a trillion pounds to keep the show going for another decade.
All the establishment parties have to offer is more magic money tree promises and a forelock tugging obsequiousness to the super rich.
0 -
Hmm, that sounds like Trotskyism to me...Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all.
0 -
Didn't you predict a Scottish YES vote ?Easterross said:
We have also seen UKIP lose almost every council by-election it has tried to defend over the past year. I would not be surprised to see Douglas Carswell as the UKIP presence in the HoC by June next year sitting on his own.OblitusSumMe said:
We had the polling yesterday that showed that UKIP voters were the least likely to change their minds before polling day.logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling leading up to the spring elections in 2013 and 2014 - so why not 2015 too?
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling as a result of defections and by-election triumphs - with another by-election win quite likely in nine days.
I suppose it's possible Farage might be caught buying quinoa from Waitrose in the next few months, but on the balance of probabilities the prospects look good for UKIP at the moment.
0 -
Which is why Theresa May wants to poke her nose into all our computers and mobiles.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
0 -
Roger in Tories are awful shocker. No surprise there. No doubt you will soon be telling us what an asset Bercow is to the HOC.Roger said:I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be0 -
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Both the LDs and the Conservatives show more realism about the measures needed than UKIP which things all things will be solved once we're out of the UK or Labour which, to all intents and purposes, remain in complete denial. However, a bigger problem for all of them lies in an electorate which wants to keep the party going - apparently with beer from Romanian hop-pickers and sandwiches made by Hungarians. I find myself kinda glad I probably won 't be around when the proverbial hits the fan.another_richard said:
Indeed.Innocent_Abroad said:
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
And after the oil revenue started drying up governments borrowed a trillion pounds to keep the show going for another decade.
All the establishment parties have to offer is more magic money tree promises and a forelock tugging obsequiousness to the super rich.0 -
We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets.
We need to cut drastically in work benefits for those earning more than the average wage.
We need to increase the minimum wage so employers bear more of the cost.
We need to use the power of HB to drive down rents in real terms.
We need to continue the reduction in head count in the public sector for at least another half million.
We have to accept that we have probably overdone IT reductions through the personal allowance and seek to claw some of that back in real terms.
We need another couple of Council Tax bands above what we have at the moment.
We need to further tighten the rules against tax avoidance using pensions.
We have to stop pretending there is anything moral about stealing from our children to make us feel good about foreign aid.
And we need to get elected. Damn! It was all going so well.0 -
It might have helped if the Tories had actually held a hustings so people could have judged how their candidates perform in public and not on paper.Roger said:I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be
0 -
This is why the government's "the economy is brilliant and bigger than it was before the recession" doesn't work.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
If the gains are being received by someone else while you suffer the pain you're angry not grateful.
0 -
Roger would never (From what I have noted in his posts) vote UKIP or Conservative so I think he is telling it as he sees it between Reckless and Tolhurst.SquareRoot said:
Roger in Tories are awful shocker. No surprise there. No doubt you will soon be telling us what an asset Bercow is to the HOC.Roger said:I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be0 -
Reducing the deficit can be greatly simplified if the corporate profits of UK companies are increased, thus raising the tax take. The government should be thinking about how it can reduce corporate costs as well as how it can maintain economic growth.0
-
We happily pay about £150 for that other British institution, the BBC. How much is a monthly Sky Sports subscription anyway?Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.0 -
maybe if we called it the TV licence and gave the money to the NHS instead we'd get away with it.Innocent_Abroad said:
You - and Socrates - between you make my point. What's (allegedly) an economic imperative is a political impossibility. So if it is an imperative we'll have to get rid of democracy. Which only works when living standards are rising.Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
However I don't quite agree with your point. The issue isn't about taxing us more, people are generally fed up with being charged for the same services twice over. It's more about stopping expenditure. Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )0 -
The Tories proposed only milionnaires pay IHT. I presume you were in favour?Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
Will not be that long till he is proven correct either.another_richard said:
Didn't you predict a Scottish YES vote ?Easterross said:
We have also seen UKIP lose almost every council by-election it has tried to defend over the past year. I would not be surprised to see Douglas Carswell as the UKIP presence in the HoC by June next year sitting on his own.OblitusSumMe said:
We had the polling yesterday that showed that UKIP voters were the least likely to change their minds before polling day.logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling leading up to the spring elections in 2013 and 2014 - so why not 2015 too?
We've seen UKIP strengthen in the polling as a result of defections and by-election triumphs - with another by-election win quite likely in nine days.
I suppose it's possible Farage might be caught buying quinoa from Waitrose in the next few months, but on the balance of probabilities the prospects look good for UKIP at the moment.0 -
Do you think the huge increase in the basic personal tax allowance has had no impact? I have a goodish teachers' pension and it has made a huge difference to what I get each month. My gross is close to the average national wage in the UK. In one sense it has made me feel privileged but I've never come close to being super-rich.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
When will the Lord A poll on Rochester be known - I'm guessing this Thursday but otherwise presume could be Sat night or even next Weds...
Any ideas?0 -
I thought the 18 NI seats were in the 25 Others? There aren't going to be twelve one-seat parties. If there were then you'd be seeing not just Mebyon Kernow get a seat, but all the different Trotskyite splinter groups too, and OMRLP to make up the numbers.Indigo said:
The Northern Irish Parties and the One seat parties, yes I am sure they will make things much clearer ;-)OblitusSumMe said:
The 30 MPs missing from the result might help.logical_song said:
Pretty meagre choice, if the results came out as you suggest how would you put together a viable coalition?Indigo said:
What happens if there are a few more screw ups by the big two, and Farage has a bit more luck and you end up with something like CON 280 LAB 280 LD 20 UKIP 15 OTH 25 which just gives you a choice of minority governments or coalitions.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.0 -
You don't think that saving £45bn over 5 years will eliminate the deficit, do you? Surely not...Alanbrooke said:
maybe if we called it the TV licence and gave the money to the NHS instead we'd get away with it.Innocent_Abroad said:
You - and Socrates - between you make my point. What's (allegedly) an economic imperative is a political impossibility. So if it is an imperative we'll have to get rid of democracy. Which only works when living standards are rising.Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
However I don't quite agree with your point. The issue isn't about taxing us more, people are generally fed up with being charged for the same services twice over. It's more about stopping expenditure. Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )
Edit - and pretty much the same point to IA, saving £6bn a year reduces the deficit by £6bn. It's not cumulative0 -
I would much more happily see the licence fee cash moved to the NHS and let the Beeb go private.Itajai said:
We happily pay about £150 for that other British institution, the BBC. How much is a monthly Sky Sports subscription anyway?Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.0 -
DavidL said:
We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets.
We need to cut drastically in work benefits for those earning more than the average wage.
We need to increase the minimum wage so employers bear more of the cost.
We need to use the power of HB to drive down rents in real terms.
We need to continue the reduction in head count in the public sector for at least another half million.
We have to accept that we have probably overdone IT reductions through the personal allowance and seek to claw some of that back in real terms.
We need another couple of Council Tax bands above what we have at the moment.
We need to further tighten the rules against tax avoidance using pensions.
We have to stop pretending there is anything moral about stealing from our children to make us feel good about foreign aid.
And we need to get elected. Damn! It was all going so well.
"We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets. "
Invade and annex Luxemburg looks the best option.0 -
Certainly the anti-establishment parties are no more realistic financially than the establishment ones.felix said:
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Both the LDs and the Conservatives show more realism about the measures needed than UKIP which things all things will be solved once we're out of the UK or Labour which, to all intents and purposes, remain in complete denial. However, a bigger problem for all of them lies in an electorate which wants to keep the party going - apparently with beer from Romanian hop-pickers and sandwiches made by Hungarians. I find myself kinda glad I probably won 't be around when the proverbial hits the fan.another_richard said:
Indeed.Innocent_Abroad said:
They would hold them in less contempt if they thought that there was a politician in England (an independent Scotland is another matter) who could arrest the secular decline in living standards which as been going on, albeit masked by oil revenue now drying up, since 1970.Easterross said:Morning all and surely what the header of the thread actually means is that the few hundred people who would bet on how short Nigel Farage lets his fag butt get before stomping it out don't have a clue what is going to happen next May.
The vast majority of voters aren't the slightest bit interested in an event 6 months away when they have Christmas, New Year, the January sales, Burns Night (in Scotland), Valentine's Day and Easter all to get out of the way before they MIGHT start to think about voting in a GE for a shower of Oxbridge PPE graduates they hold in utter contempt, regardless of party!
The lower-middle class lifestyle implicit in the "1945 settlement" - owner-occupied semi-detached house, Ford Escort in the garage, annual pilgrimage to the Costa Del Whatever - is about to be switched off. People know this in their bones. And they also know that not only are they unable to compete in the labour market, whether as unskilled labour or as management consultants, they are unable to cope with the hardship that's coming.
And after the oil revenue started drying up governments borrowed a trillion pounds to keep the show going for another decade.
All the establishment parties have to offer is more magic money tree promises and a forelock tugging obsequiousness to the super rich.
And if they ever get into government they'll disappoint their supporters.
The whole country is addicted to the magic money tree.
Perhaps the most contemptible decision by governments was to pander to this addiction during the last decade rather than tell the truth.
With the result the government is another trillion quid in debt and the magic money tree addiction is even stronger.
0 -
Rog and Rod agree.Pulpstar said:
Roger would never (From what I have noted in his posts) vote UKIP or Conservative so I think he is telling it as he sees it between Reckless and Tolhurst.SquareRoot said:
Roger in Tories are awful shocker. No surprise there. No doubt you will soon be telling us what an asset Bercow is to the HOC.Roger said:I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be
1m Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson
After watching the Rochester candidates' debate, Rod Liddle expects UKIP will win by 10,000. His report: http://specc.ie/1xtC5dq
0 -
Richard
"The Conservative primary was about as 'open' as a Ferdinand Marcos election.
It seems to have been a typical Grant Schapps/Michael Green/Sebastian Fox idea."
Well who chose her then, Peter Mandelson? Surely such a piece of dawkish malliance could only have been cooked up by the great Dr Faustus himself?
Did you mean Grant Shapps/Michael Green/Sebastian Fox/audreyanne?0 -
I have been saying for ages that we need a combination of spending cuts and tax increases of at least £50bn a year to eliminate the deficit. Yesterday the government finally came close to admitting as much.
And that, of course, is assuming the other £50bn reflects cyclical effects currently depressing the tax take. That assumption is looking more optimistic with each passing year. The scale of the problem is almost overwhelming.
And then we have to pay the £1trn back.....
Or we could just vote Labour I suppose. That always works out well.0 -
Well it would be a good start. Juncker is looking like something else Cameron was right about.Alanbrooke said:DavidL said:We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets.
We need to cut drastically in work benefits for those earning more than the average wage.
We need to increase the minimum wage so employers bear more of the cost.
We need to use the power of HB to drive down rents in real terms.
We need to continue the reduction in head count in the public sector for at least another half million.
We have to accept that we have probably overdone IT reductions through the personal allowance and seek to claw some of that back in real terms.
We need another couple of Council Tax bands above what we have at the moment.
We need to further tighten the rules against tax avoidance using pensions.
We have to stop pretending there is anything moral about stealing from our children to make us feel good about foreign aid.
And we need to get elected. Damn! It was all going so well.
"We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets. "
Invade and annex Luxemburg looks the best option.0 -
They knew that most people who were millionaires would have clever accountants to help them minimise the pain. And if they didn't the Tory view would be that they deserved to pay it.Itajai said:
The Tories proposed only milionnaires pay IHT. I presume you were in favour?Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
A fair bit more than that.Itajai said:
We happily pay about £150 for that other British institution, the BBC. How much is a monthly Sky Sports subscription anyway?Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
0 -
Yes, but increasing income through raising personal allowance is a zero sum game. Less are paying in, so there is less tax take to pay for services. What we need are better wages, from which most of us are happy to pay taxes that are available to fund services - it helps make the country a slightly more equitable and fair place to live.felix said:
Do you think the huge increase in the basic personal tax allowance has had no impact? I have a goodish teachers' pension and it has made a huge difference to what I get each month. My gross is close to the average national wage in the UK. In one sense it has made me feel privileged but I've never come close to being super-rich.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
Apologies for being off-topic but I had to comment on this howler from this lightweight but otherwise potentially interesting Beeb article on a conference considering what might have happened had Franz Ferdinand not been shot, so precipitating WWI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-29991018
Spot the error in this photo caption: "Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 27 June 1917, the day before being shot"0 -
Scrapheap
"Rog and Rod agree."
Oddly enough it seems we do. I don't agree with his comments about a left wing audience-I thought exactly the opposite-and if it wasn't that I was bending over ackwards to be impartial I would have agreed that the Labour candidate was the most impressive.
But it's a two horse race and my filly isn't one of them Reckless was by a mile the the better of the two. The Tory lady is a disaster!0 -
I'm very happy to see other property taxes which would help close the deficit. Just not ones which try to decide what you are doing in your own home. The most obvious thing is to do a revaluation for council tax, and to add a whole bunch of extra bands at the top.Innocent_Abroad said:
You - and Socrates - between you make my point. What's (allegedly) an economic imperative is a political impossibility. So if it is an imperative we'll have to get rid of democracy. Which only works when living standards are rising.Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.0 -
Another good show from Yvette Cooper last night. Labour should put her in charge, move MIliband to health, leave Balls as shadow CotE and promote Burnham to shadow Home Office. And, just to scare the Tories, they should move ask Mandelson to become shadow Foreign Sec.
Yvette Cooper - opposition leader (female, clever, pragmatic, comes across well)
Ed Balls - shadow CotE (cleverest Labour MP, and the toughest, will be fully supportive of wife)
Peter Mandelson - shadow Foreign Sec (job he's always wanted. Clever, experienced, liked in party)
Andy Burnham - Shadow Home (promotion, shows maturity to have a rival in top team)
Ed Miliband - Shadow Health (public would feel sympathetic towards him, his mawkish, sincere socialism would suit health)
If Welsh boys did Labour front benches!0 -
We won't ever solve the deficit unless we solve the immigration crisis. 120 bn a decade is the best case scenario for the cost of non EU immigration. We will have to cut social provision to just a basic level if we continue on as we are, the Conservative party is just as dishonest on this as the Labour party even if they have at least have reintroduced some restrictions.0
-
Britain's financial sector is a broader, shallower version of Luxembourg's, so if Juncker really was going to slow-pedal action to take on what most of the EU think is abusive then that would be helpful to Britain as well.DavidL said:
Well it would be a good start. Juncker is looking like something else Cameron was right about.Alanbrooke said:DavidL said:We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets.
We need to cut drastically in work benefits for those earning more than the average wage.
We need to increase the minimum wage so employers bear more of the cost.
We need to use the power of HB to drive down rents in real terms.
We need to continue the reduction in head count in the public sector for at least another half million.
We have to accept that we have probably overdone IT reductions through the personal allowance and seek to claw some of that back in real terms.
We need another couple of Council Tax bands above what we have at the moment.
We need to further tighten the rules against tax avoidance using pensions.
We have to stop pretending there is anything moral about stealing from our children to make us feel good about foreign aid.
And we need to get elected. Damn! It was all going so well.
"We need to find ways of charging multinationals another £10-15bn for the privilege of having access to our markets. "
Invade and annex Luxemburg looks the best option.
One of the mysterious things about British Conservatives going after Juncker is that he's pretty much the best candidate they could possibly have hoped for. If someone else's name had come up first and the papers had gone after them instead you can be sure Juncker would have been Cameron's favoured alternative.0 -
The article raises the question and then doesn't explore it at all.david_herdson said:Apologies for being off-topic but I had to comment on this howler from this lightweight but otherwise potentially interesting Beeb article on a conference considering what might have happened had Franz Ferdinand not been shot, so precipitating WWI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-29991018
Spot the error in this photo caption: "Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 27 June 1917, the day before being shot"0 -
I like it, apart from Balls. I'd like him out of the Treasury.Fenster said:Another good show from Yvette Cooper last night. Labour should put her in charge, move MIliband to health, leave Balls as shadow CotE and promote Burnham to shadow Home Office. And, just to scare the Tories, they should move ask Mandelson to become shadow Foreign Sec.
Yvette Cooper - opposition leader (female, clever, pragmatic, comes across well)
Ed Balls - shadow CotE (cleverest Labour MP, and the toughest, will be fully supportive of wife)
Peter Mandelson - shadow Foreign Sec (job he's always wanted. Clever, experienced, liked in party)
Andy Burnham - Shadow Home (promotion, shows maturity to have a rival in top team)
Ed Miliband - Shadow Health (public would feel sympathetic towards him, his mawkish, sincere socialism would suit health)
If Welsh boys did Labour front benches!0 -
Erm...the deficit is 100bn - so cutting Overseas Aid out would solve 9% of the problem. We don't need to save 45bn we need top save 100bn or more. Thanks Gordon n Ed!Alanbrooke said:
Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )Innocent_Abroad said:
You - and Socrates - between you make my point. What's (allegedly) an economic imperative is a political impossibility. So if it is an imperative we'll have to get rid of democracy. Which only works when living standards are rising.Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.0 -
Er - yes but tax cuts for the poor and average do stimulate spending which also increases the tax take. Of course we need better wages but that is not within the gift of government. The fact is we have to accept a slow or nil rise in living standards until we can compete with the rest of the world. Decades of borrowing and pretend economics by all parties has resulted in people believing the party can go on for ever. It just plain cannot happen.Monksfield said:
Yes, but increasing income through raising personal allowance is a zero sum game. Less are paying in, so there is less tax take to pay for services. What we need are better wages, from which most of us are happy to pay taxes that are available to fund services - it helps make the country a slightly more equitable and fair place to live.felix said:
Do you think the huge increase in the basic personal tax allowance has had no impact? I have a goodish teachers' pension and it has made a huge difference to what I get each month. My gross is close to the average national wage in the UK. In one sense it has made me feel privileged but I've never come close to being super-rich.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
What sort of corporate cost reductions are you talking about? If you mean tax, then that's self-defeating as we're clearly on the left hand side of the Laffer Curve. If you're talking about reducing wages, then that's also counter-productive as the reason you want to balance the books is to improve the long-term well-being of the British public.antifrank said:Reducing the deficit can be greatly simplified if the corporate profits of UK companies are increased, thus raising the tax take. The government should be thinking about how it can reduce corporate costs as well as how it can maintain economic growth.
You then have property costs and regulatory costs, and that's where we can get to a more in-depth conversation. The best way to reduce property costs (or at least contain them) is to limit immigration into this country, which is pushing them up dramatically for little economic gain. The best way to reduce regulatory costs is to leave the EU.0 -
Speak for yourself, buddy.Itajai said:
We happily pay about £150 for that other British institution, the BBC. How much is a monthly Sky Sports subscription anyway?Alanbrooke said:Innocent_Abroad said:But suppose there were a Grand Coalition... what might it do to try to address the deficit? To scale the task, here's a couple of ideas. Remember, we need to find £400 billion,
First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS (i.e. with a GP, hospitals, clinics and dentists thrown in). That gives the NHS £3bn which frees up the same amount of Government revenue for deficit repayment each year. People can afford this because we convert the BBC licence fee into a subscription, and thus a civil debt.
That's for the Tories in the Coalition; now here's Labour's bit. We apply the bedroom tax (sorry, spare room subsidy) to owner-occupied homes. We'll only apply it to the second spare room and subseqent (and to second homes), we're a Grand Coalition not f*cking Trotsky, after all. Might even get a few people to trade down, and so ease the housing crisis (except that Johnny Foreigner will outbid the natives and then let the houses out to his pals in the potato fields). No idea what that might bring in, depends on the tax rate, let's say we want another £3bn a year from that one, too.
So we get £6bn annually, and can clear the deficit in 60-70 years. That's all right then, the Chinese are good at taking the long view...
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
I do not pay it out of fury for a certain scandal that has restricted my posting privileges on this site.0 -
Which is the EU all over. We're supposed to be happy with a bad option because the other options are even worse.edmundintokyo said:One of the mysterious things about British Conservatives going after Juncker is that he's pretty much the best candidate they could possibly have hoped for. If someone else's name had come up first and the papers had gone after them instead you can be sure Juncker would have been Cameron's favoured alternative.
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What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.FalseFlag said:We won't ever solve the deficit unless we solve the immigration crisis. 120 bn a decade is the best case scenario for the cost of non EU immigration. We will have to cut social provision to just a basic level if we continue on as we are, the Conservative party is just as dishonest on this as the Labour party even if they have at least have reintroduced some restrictions.
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In 2010 Labour took 41 of the 59 Scottish seats on 42% of the Scottish vote, because FPTP has an inbuilt 'winners bonus' if you win by more than a small margin (mostly). Recent polling has the SNP on over that. Even pre-referendum they were polling mid-30s.DavidL said:I will be very surprised if there is more than 5 UKIP MPs and maybe 10 additional SNP MPs. As I expect there to be roughly 30 fewer Lib Dems logic indicates there will be roughly 15 more Tory or Labour MPs. Doesn't make a hung Parliament impossible but a 60%+ chance? I just don't see it.
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And how do Parties get elected during this period of adjustment?felix said:
Er - yes but tax cuts for the poor and average do stimulate spending which also increases the tax take. Of course we need better wages but that is not within the gift of government. The fact is we have to accept a slow or nil rise in living standards until we can compete with the rest of the world. Decades of borrowing and pretend economics by all parties has resulted in people believing the party can go on for ever. It just plain cannot happen.Monksfield said:
Yes, but increasing income through raising personal allowance is a zero sum game. Less are paying in, so there is less tax take to pay for services. What we need are better wages, from which most of us are happy to pay taxes that are available to fund services - it helps make the country a slightly more equitable and fair place to live.felix said:
Do you think the huge increase in the basic personal tax allowance has had no impact? I have a goodish teachers' pension and it has made a huge difference to what I get each month. My gross is close to the average national wage in the UK. In one sense it has made me feel privileged but I've never come close to being super-rich.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
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We already compete with the world in high value added goods and services, very successfully. The elite seem to be determined to move us down the value chain and compete with the sweatshops of the world. As long as we continue on with our immigration policies we will continue to see a decline in living standards.felix said:
Er - yes but tax cuts for the poor and average do stimulate spending which also increases the tax take. Of course we need better wages but that is not within the gift of government. The fact is we have to accept a slow or nil rise in living standards until we can compete with the rest of the world. Decades of borrowing and pretend economics by all parties has resulted in people believing the party can go on for ever. It just plain cannot happen.Monksfield said:
Yes, but increasing income through raising personal allowance is a zero sum game. Less are paying in, so there is less tax take to pay for services. What we need are better wages, from which most of us are happy to pay taxes that are available to fund services - it helps make the country a slightly more equitable and fair place to live.felix said:
Do you think the huge increase in the basic personal tax allowance has had no impact? I have a goodish teachers' pension and it has made a huge difference to what I get each month. My gross is close to the average national wage in the UK. In one sense it has made me feel privileged but I've never come close to being super-rich.Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.0 -
Stop importing immigrants that undercut them and force them on to unemployment and low wage benefits?edmundintokyo said:
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.FalseFlag said:We won't ever solve the deficit unless we solve the immigration crisis. 120 bn a decade is the best case scenario for the cost of non EU immigration. We will have to cut social provision to just a basic level if we continue on as we are, the Conservative party is just as dishonest on this as the Labour party even if they have at least have reintroduced some restrictions.
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OK. So you were against only millionaires paying IHT. Good to know.Monksfield said:
They knew that most people who were millionaires would have clever accountants to help them minimise the pain. And if they didn't the Tory view would be that they deserved to pay it.Itajai said:
The Tories proposed only milionnaires pay IHT. I presume you were in favour?Monksfield said:
Will people be prepared to take real pain when they continue to see tax avoidance by multinationals and wealthy individuals on an epic scale, and tax cuts that benefit the same people the most? I don't think so, they will see it for the con it is; the privileged protecting themselves whilst making the majority's lives that much harder.another_richard said:Interesting comment from Jeremy Warner in yesterday's Telegraph:
' The fact of the matter is that low inflation and low nominal wage growth are making fiscal consolidation extremely difficult. If tax revenues can’t be made to rise, that leaves even more of the hard lifting to be done by spending cuts. And on this front, we must assume that the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The Office for Budget Responsibility implies in its forecasts roughly a million public sector job cuts by the end of the consolidation in 2018. So far we have had little more than 300,000. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11220695/Only-a-good-old-fashioned-bout-of-wage-inflation-can-save-the-public-finances.html
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
I guess the Millipede brothers had clever accountants so they paid nothing. Or perhaps only noble socialists are excluded from IHT. Like the brothers and Tony Benn.0 -
If that's what you call Cameron and whoever is the Labour leader - Yes.Socrates said:
The real choices? You mean between Tweedledum and Tweedledee?logical_song said:
This assumes a strengthening UKIP, it could easily go the other way as the electorate concentrate on the real choices.OblitusSumMe said:
Well we know that UKIP will be directly taking seats from the Conservatives at the next election, so the rise of UKIP makes a Conservative majority less likely. It is also very likely that UKIP will take seats from Labour, at least indirectly if not directly, by winning seats such as South Thanet which are high up on Labour's target list.edmundintokyo said:I'm not sure this is the right response to the rise of UKIP. If they're rocking the boat, doesn't that increase the chances that it will tip over to one side or the other?
It's tempting to say thay neither of the main parties looks good enough to get a majority, but absent a huge UKIP breakthrough in seats you don't need to be good to get a majority. You just need to be less bad than the other guy.
So if we compare the situation in late 2014 to the situation in 2012, then it's pretty clear that the probability of a hung Parliament is now greater, and as UKIP strengthens and the number of seats they are likely to win increases, then that will only increase the chance of a hung Parliament.
I think I see what you are arguing - that by making individual seat results more unpredictable UKIP will increase the size of the tails of the probability distribution for seats won - but I actually don't agree. The number of marginal seats involved is large enough that random effects are likely to broadly cancel out, and so the effect of an increasing number of UKIP MPs will be more important.
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Doesn't work, you reduce economic activity and move the jobs out of the country.Socrates said:
Stop importing immigrants that undercut them and force them on to unemployment and low wage benefits?edmundintokyo said:
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.FalseFlag said:We won't ever solve the deficit unless we solve the immigration crisis. 120 bn a decade is the best case scenario for the cost of non EU immigration. We will have to cut social provision to just a basic level if we continue on as we are, the Conservative party is just as dishonest on this as the Labour party even if they have at least have reintroduced some restrictions.
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