The electorate are going to NOTA because no party is providing or even suggesting viable solutions to the problems that beset and will increasing beset the UK.
So, will the turnout in 2015 be up or down? Will LAB/CON/LD lose support, but will that support go to UKIP and Greens as their polices (or lack of) are exposed in 2015? Or will many people just not vote as there seems to be no solution in sight, but to emigrate.
Currently Cons are losing support to UKIP, Labour is losing support to UKIP, Greens and SNP and the LDs are losing support to LAB, Cons, UKIP and Greens.
Certainly hard fiscal policies are required and that does not include pay increases which as a country competing globally cannot be afforded. We have to do more with less and that includes education. Most of the child care costs could be eliminated if school hours were extended to say 8.15 am to 5pm. Screams from the NUT etc, but this is facing reality which happens in other countries.
There has to be more aspiration regarding the educated and the educators across all skill sets and all ages.
We are a small island and cannot take more immigrants - especially the uneducated and unskilled. Those on JSA must take up jobs that are offered and are within their skill sets and physical ability, notwithstanding location.
Child allowance has to stop after the first two children and tax credits recalculated so that it benefits those who do work - even part time.
However none of the none of the 5 UK-wide parties will have the courage to even propose such necessary measures.
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
Stop importing immigrants that undercut them and force them on to unemployment and low wage benefits?
Doesn't work, you reduce economic activity and move the jobs out of the country.
You reduce economic activity, but the taxes you get from the low wage activity is less than the expense of paying for low wage people. So it absolutely does work.
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
Oh, you mean all those retired people, people who have paid tax all their lives, disabled, war wounded, babies, school children and others no doubt I haven't thought of.
I treat members of my own family more generously than complete strangers.
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.
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.
Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )
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!
You're forgetting what a cracking job George has done which will see the deficit reduce substantially in future years with all the action he has taken to date. Or could it be you think he's talking out his butt and the problem is a lot bigger than he's claiming ?
The answer to me is simple. UKIP needs to go green, and they'll draw in a wider spectrum of new voters. It's one thing having the main parties unable to progress vis a vis each other as voters drift off to new hunting grounds. But when the new parties are also unable to gain traction, they need to adapt. Either The Greens go eurosceptic (flying piggery), or UKIP goes Green which it easily could do. There is nothing in immigration politics, or in euroscepticism which precludes Greenery. GMOs. Fracking. And so on.
11.11.14 LAB 320 (320) CON 268(268) LD 31(31) UKIP 2(2) Others 29 (Ed is crap is PM) Last weeks BJESUS in brackets BJESUS (Big John Election Service Uniform Swing) Using current polling adjusted for 177 days left to go factor and using UKPR standard swingometer
After watching the TV debate on Rochester,it is clear the Tories do not have the exceptional candidate they need to win.Whether it's just that the Labour candidate is small in stature but the Tory lady looked absolutely massive in comparison.Whatever,it was a case of flyweight kick-boxer Khan demolishing her.Reckless kept to his prepared script and took no chances. I suspect if there is a slight down-tick from this it will be the Tories.The response of the audience would indicate popularity with the Green candidate.From Restless' point of view he just needed not to drop a clanger he hasn't already dropped and he didn't.
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.
Cineworld Cinemas have the same policy.
Personally, I thought it was fair enough.
Thought crime replaced by someone else thinks you might be thinking about becoming a criminal. It's all part of the cover story to prevent you noticing that Parliament is part of a powerful paedophile ring. It's the classic diversion strategy. It's not just us. It's everyone. No enquiry has been forthcoming. No convictions. No arrests. yet we know well that 40 MPs are already facing paedophile/child abuse allegations.
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
Stop importing immigrants that undercut them and force them on to unemployment and low wage benefits?
Doesn't work, you reduce economic activity and move the jobs out of the country.
so you're against all this high wage high productivity nonsense ? if only we could cut wages to 40p an hour think of all the extra t-shirts we could make.
Under Ukip rules would David Moyes be allowed to take this Real Sociadad job ? Unfettered EU immigrant going over to Spain taking their jobs..
Only applies to non Brits in little Englander land
Not even Labour want the government to dictate who firms hire. Kippers want the government to micromanage hiring - its like something out of Soviet Russia.
My Hungarian plumber does a great job at a great price - but he earns less than David Moyes - hope he finishes the shower installation before next May - Nige will be frogmarching him to a holding pen on the Isle of Wight.
11.11.14 LAB 320 (320) CON 268(268) LD 31(31) UKIP 2(2) Others 29 (Ed is crap is PM) Last weeks BJESUS in brackets BJESUS (Big John Election Service Uniform Swing) Using current polling adjusted for 177 days left to go factor and using UKPR standard swingometer
You should get yourself a sporting index account if you trust those figures...
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.
Cineworld Cinemas have the same policy.
Personally, I thought it was fair enough.
Thought crime replaced by someone else thinks you might be thinking about becoming a criminal. It's all part of the cover story to prevent you noticing that Parliament is part of a powerful paedophile ring. It's the classic diversion strategy. It's not just us. It's everyone. No enquiry has been forthcoming. No convictions. No arrests. yet we know well that 40 MPs are already facing paedophile/child abuse allegations.
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!
That's really not true, at least in the marginals. I visit around 1000 voters a month. The majority (yes, >50%) start talking about the election before I open my mouth, usually with fully-formed views - "I'm going to be voting X because of Y" - or they launch in with questions. Around 60% are motivated and convinced how they'll vote (only slightly more than the national polls), around 20% simply don't vote, full stop, and the remaining 20% want to talk about it. The non-voters don't care, but nearly everyone else has been thinking about it. I'm constantly stopped in the street (when I'm not wearing a rosette or sticker, just shopping) and asked how it's going, wished luck or the opposite, etc. - people even stop their cars to call out opinions.
That doesn't mean they're all enthusiastic, though quite a lot are, partly because it's seen locally as a duel between two people who are locally well-known and most people have a view on that. It's good fun, and the voters are far from detached.
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.
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.
Which way it may ultimately swing is still up for grabs.
I think Hung Parliament is far too short - people are being led by a false intuition that parties can't win with say 32% of the vote, which doesn't take into account the arrival of 4-party politics. Let's assume that the probable LibDem collapse is balanced by a rise in SNP/UKIP seats. It still only requires a small swing either way to create a majority. HP punters are betting on all the effects - economy, leaders, NHS, UKIP, LibDems, Europe, black swans - almost exactly cancelling each other out. In my view it's unlikely.
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
What are the Tories up to on EU matters ? They are all over the place and ran away from a debate in parliament which they promised to backbenchers, as well as those on the opposition benches. Both Cameron and May promised a debate with a vote on the European Arrest Warrant, which they withdrew on the day it was due to take place. Instead they tried to hold a debate/vote on just 11 out of 35 opt-in issues. The Speaker ruled that the debate/vote was not on the EAW, but Theresa May said she would use the vote to mean acceptance of the 35 opt-in issues including the EAW. This has got to be one of the biggest own goals a government party has scored.
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.
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.
Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )
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!
You're forgetting what a cracking job George has done which will see the deficit reduce substantially in future years with all the action he has taken to date. Or could it be you think he's talking out his butt and the problem is a lot bigger than he's claiming ?
The deficit is a giant throbbing monster of a problem and NO political party is being fully honest about the implications it has on our living standards. The electorate is simply not ready to listen to the truth. So the truth will catch them up the backside 'unexpectedly' at some point. (1 year into Redward's premiership in my view).
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
Oh, you mean all those retired people, people who have paid tax all their lives, disabled, war wounded, babies, school children and others no doubt I haven't thought of.
I treat members of my own family more generously than complete strangers.
Cue the usual Kippers are racist bull.
Actually it's pretty much just the median taxpayer-and-spender. There's a big spending over tax deficit because... Britain has a big deficit.
BTW one of the reasons for the big non-EU deficit is that British immigration policy tries to discourage "economic migrants" (people who want to get a job, start a business, pay taxes etc). The people who can still get in reasonably reliably are the dependents (spouses and children) of British nationals, who are by definition... dependent. The really perverse recent development is to strictly enforce limits on dependents based on the salary of the British national while ignoring the earning potential of the foreign spouse, so a British person earning a reasonable can bring their foreign spouse over at a net cost to the taxpayer, but a British person without much money can't bring over a skilled foreign spouse who would support them (and the exchequer).
Note the contrast with EU immigration, where the government isn't allowed to have an immigration policy, so politicians don't have the opportunity to cook up an arrangement that will end up costing taxpayers billions of pounds, and Britain ends up inadvertently making a profit on the arrangement.
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
I remember in the early years of the Coalition hearing about how clever Osborne was for front-loading the deficit cuts so that he would have room in his budget for giveaways in an election-winning budget in 2015. It didn't happen.
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
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 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.
Rog and Rod agree.
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
Unfortunately for the Tories, it does appear that the candidates are miles apart. Reckless is the sort of candidate that the majority want as their MP.
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
I would like to see the evidence for that.
It's in the same report the 120 bn number came from. Basically if you're adding up tax receipts minus spending in a country with a honking great deficit, you end up with most people being a net cost.
Under Ukip rules would David Moyes be allowed to take this Real Sociadad job ? Unfettered EU immigrant going over to Spain taking their jobs..
Only applies to non Brits in little Englander land
Not even Labour want the government to dictate who firms hire. Kippers want the government to micromanage hiring - its like something out of Soviet Russia.
My Hungarian plumber does a great job at a great price - but he earns less than David Moyes - hope he finishes the shower installation before next May - Nige will be frogmarching him to a holding pen on the Isle of Wight.
Is that how the current govt treat non eu immigrants then? Like soviet Russia
11.11.14 LAB 320 (320) CON 268(268) LD 31(31) UKIP 2(2) Others 29 (Ed is crap is PM) Last weeks BJESUS in brackets BJESUS (Big John Election Service Uniform Swing) Using current polling adjusted for 177 days left to go factor and using UKPR standard swingometer
You should get yourself a sporting index account if you trust those figures...
I am Betfaired out on LAB most seats already. Once was in this for well over a grand now about £650 as have taken 12% profit on rest.
I do not have any idea if UKIP will win Clacton only or get double figures so dont want to get involved in that market.
Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) 09/11/2014 14:15 More questions raised over the link between U.S. election attack dogs and Tory HQ's nasty tactics in #Rochester: thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/polit…
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
I remember in the early years of the Coalition hearing about how clever Osborne was for front-loading the deficit cuts so that he would have room in his budget for giveaways in an election-winning budget in 2015. It didn't happen.
The long grass always looks so appealing.
To be fair Osborne did front load, but that stalled the economy so he had to backtrack fast.
Actually it's pretty much just the median taxpayer-and-spender. There's a big spending over tax deficit because... Britain has a big deficit.
BTW one of the reasons for the big non-EU deficit is that British immigration policy tries to discourage "economic migrants" (people who want to get a job, start a business, pay taxes etc). The people who can still get in reasonably reliably are the dependents (spouses and children) of British nationals, who are by definition... dependent. The really perverse recent development is to strictly enforce limits on dependents based on the salary of the British national while ignoring the earning potential of the foreign spouse, so a British person earning a reasonable can bring their foreign spouse over at a net cost to the taxpayer, but a British person without much money can't bring over a skilled foreign spouse who would support them (and the exchequer).
Note the contrast with EU immigration, where the government isn't allowed to have an immigration policy, so politicians don't have the opportunity to cook up an arrangement that will end up costing taxpayers billions of pounds, and Britain ends up inadvertently making a profit on the arrangement.
This is a complete misreading of the situation.
1) On the non-EU stuff, the reason for various cackhanded ways of dealing with immigration reduction is because membership of the European Union requires us to abide by court rulings on how "the right to a family life" is interpreted, which basically means it's very hard to come up with a sensible system that will benefit this country. You end up having to come up with things that can get past a court challenge, like the income threshold, rather than points system.
2) Those potential immigrants with high earnings potential, with earnings being ignored under family migration, should be able to apply through the economic migration system. You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
3) The reason why non-EU migrants cost a lot more than EU migrants is nothing to do with unfiltered immigration being better than (badly) filtered immigration. It's because of two reasons: (1) a lot of it comes from places like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia, where the women are expected to stay home once they are married, and they have a lot of kids. That means less taxes and more benefits for them. (2) large scale non-EU migration has been happening for longer, so non-EU migrants are on average older, thus requiring more pensions, healthcare and child benefits. The two time periods for EU migrants have shown the contribution is getting smaller already. Give it another ten years and it'll probably be negative.
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:
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds lovely.
I just can't work out how. The trade deficit hasn't closed, despite the extraordinary restraint on wages.
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
I remember in the early years of the Coalition hearing about how clever Osborne was for front-loading the deficit cuts so that he would have room in his budget for giveaways in an election-winning budget in 2015. It didn't happen.
The long grass always looks so appealing.
? As I understand it Osborne front-loaded tax increases, and put off the bulk of the spending cuts until after the 2015 election.
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds lovely.
I just can't work out how. The trade deficit hasn't closed, despite the extraordinary restraint on wages.
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.
City AM highlights the spending side of the problem.
"But why take it as given that we must have a state sector that spends or redistributes as much as 46.5 per cent of GDP (the OECD estimate for the UK for 2014)? A cursory glance at the same OECD figures shows that countries like Australia (36.2), Canada (40.3), New Zealand (41.3) and Switzerland (33.6) all spend significantly less than us as a proportion of GDP. In other words, if we are willing to be more imaginative about the role of the state, further significant spending cuts are clearly achievable."
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds lovely.
I just can't work out how. The trade deficit hasn't closed, despite the extraordinary restraint on wages.
Where does the money come from?
Debt, debt, debt, debt, debt .....
Ben - can you provide the data showing that Uk personal debt has risen since 2010 ? Secured or unsecured ?
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to work, and it's somewhat effective in doing that.
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
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. '
If that's true then there's real pain coming after the election.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds lovely.
I just can't work out how. The trade deficit hasn't closed, despite the extraordinary restraint on wages.
Where does the money come from?
Debt, debt, debt, debt, debt .....
Ben - can you provide the data showing that Uk personal debt has risen since 2010 ? Secured or unsecured ?
"Average consumer borrowing (including credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured loans) per UK adult was £3,204 in January. This is up from a revised £3,153 in December."
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.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
I would like to see the evidence for that.
It's in the same report the 120 bn number came from. Basically if you're adding up tax receipts minus spending in a country with a honking great deficit, you end up with most people being a net cost.
Incoherent on their part, happens when you desperately attempt to prove a pre ordained conclusion. That would for instance imply the indigenous population is solely responsible for bank bailouts, war costs, foreign aid, infrastructure spending etc.
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to work, and it's somewhat effective in doing that.
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
I just checked it again. £20,500 is enough on a skilled visa with any job offer and sponsorship - not necessarily a MNC.
The Tories danced around the edges of the edges of the spending limits by inundating the public with literature for their primary
Jim Messina employed people to call voters with leading and derogatory questions about mark Reckless, which he then passed on to Tory HQ... Some might call it push polling
David Cameron and the ministers have visited several times in an effort to throw the kitchen sink at the constituency
"US STYLE" TV attack ads have been made attacking Reckless
Yet people are queing up to bet UKIP AT 1.1 on Betfair
What went wrong?
Richard Nabavi Mike Smithson and Audrey Anne all wrote at length as to why Conservatives had a great chance in Rochester... What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?
Most of the child care costs could be eliminated if school hours were extended to say 8.15 am to 5pm. Screams from the NUT etc, but this is facing reality which happens in other countries.
I've never seen so much paperwork as that involved in teaching. If you drastically reduced the paperwork that is required of teachers you could extend school opening hours as you propose and reduce the workload for most teachers.
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
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 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.
Rog and Rod agree.
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
Unfortunately for the Tories, it does appear that the candidates are miles apart. Reckless is the sort of candidate that the majority want as their MP.
The Tory candidate came across as a bit angry and not very good at talking about the big picture ie someone who people might in other circumstances have assumed was actually the Ukip candidate. Reckless looked like he didn't particularly want to be there and was oddly lacklustre. Labour were passable but no more than that and I thought the Green stole the show. I'd liked to have said the LD impressed but in all honesty I think he was there to make up the numbers. Don't think overall that this rather poor debate will influence the vote much tbh.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
The answer to me is simple. UKIP needs to go green, and they'll draw in a wider spectrum of new voters. It's one thing having the main parties unable to progress vis a vis each other as voters drift off to new hunting grounds. But when the new parties are also unable to gain traction, they need to adapt. Either The Greens go eurosceptic (flying piggery), or UKIP goes Green which it easily could do. There is nothing in immigration politics, or in euroscepticism which precludes Greenery. GMOs. Fracking. And so on.
You're having a laugh, UKIP's two main blocks at the moment the WWC and the Shire Tories both despise green politics and would run a mile if it was even suggested.
"Average consumer borrowing (including credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured loans) per UK adult was £3,204 in January. This is up from a revised £3,153 in December."
Unsecured debt rising.
Genuine question.
Yes Ben - that rise was LESS than inflation well spotted.
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
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.
Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )
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!
Still wouldn't solve it as we would still need to borrow even while making the cuts. The bill would reduce but at a much slower rate than you expect. Fact is Gordon and Labour sold your grandchildren for votes. I think the people are slowly starting to realise it.
Perhaps we should just revert to groats and start over.
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to work, and it's somewhat effective in doing that.
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
I just checked it again. £20,500 is enough on a skilled visa with any job offer and sponsorship - not necessarily a MNC.
A job offer and sponsorship is a huge pain in the arse for a small business, and basically impossible if you're self-employed. The system's designed for (mainly large) companies to say, "I need to bring in that particular person from overseas, and I need them so much that I'll jump through a bunch of hoops to get them", not to allow people to move to Britain and find jobs.
A lot of people will agree with that system, but like I say don't be surprised that the people you wouldn't let in don't pay you taxes.
City AM highlights the spending side of the problem.
"But why take it as given that we must have a state sector that spends or redistributes as much as 46.5 per cent of GDP (the OECD estimate for the UK for 2014)? A cursory glance at the same OECD figures shows that countries like Australia (36.2), Canada (40.3), New Zealand (41.3) and Switzerland (33.6) all spend significantly less than us as a proportion of GDP. In other words, if we are willing to be more imaginative about the role of the state, further significant spending cuts are clearly achievable."
Unsurprising view of the world there. The problem began when the money coming in fell away sharply after 2008. Tax receipts of all sorts collapsed and that massively increased the debt and the deficit.
If we're only getting round to paying off WW1 debt now, I'm less concerned about today's debt as long as it can be serviced in terms of interest payments.
As for the deficit, City AM invites us to compare apples with oranges when comparing our share of GDP spent "in the state sector" (whatever that means) with the likes of New Zealand and Switzerland. These are very different countries with different populations, different demands and different requirements. It's a traditional old right-wing blue herring to confuse the issue.
Post 2015, the idea would be to raise revenues and reduce spending so we can devote more to paying down the debt - fair enough, no problem. Yet we have the absurd notions of ring fencing significant areas of public expenditure plus the usual old right-wing demand for increased defence expenditure.
I don't see how the circle can be squared without either a) opening the whole of the public sector to potential cuts or b) significant tax rises. The problem is both are the political equivalent of suicide. One could argue a confident leader of conviction could carry across such a message but as we don't have any of those at the moment, that won't happen. In any case, a British electorate, many of whom have yet to see any evidence of "recovery", won't be thrilled at the prospect of tax rises or even perhaps cuts to the NHS.
So we're back to the usual demonising of the public sector and welfare claimants which passes for debate and argument. As for the public sector, £1.7 billion is roughly what Surrey County Council spends in a year if you want a bit of perspective.
Most of the child care costs could be eliminated if school hours were extended to say 8.15 am to 5pm. Screams from the NUT etc, but this is facing reality which happens in other countries.
I've never seen so much paperwork as that involved in teaching. If you drastically reduced the paperwork that is required of teachers you could extend school opening hours as you propose and reduce the workload for most teachers.
The most ridiculous stuff about child care requirements is that you have required ratios for how many adults to children. That pushes up costs tremendously. If parents can see you have a well managed facility and are happy to leave kids with you despite only having, for example, a one to six ratio, why on Earth does the government ban it? In traditional Montessori classrooms - a form of education which has documented higher results than mainstream education - you standardly have about one to fifteen. I've walked into classrooms like this in the US and there's less noise than in an average British classroom.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to work, and it's somewhat effective in doing that.
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
I just checked it again. £20,500 is enough on a skilled visa with any job offer and sponsorship - not necessarily a MNC.
A job offer and sponsorship is a huge pain in the arse for a small business, and basically impossible if you're self-employed. The system's designed for (mainly large) companies to say, "I need to bring in that particular person from overseas, and I need them so much that I'll jump through a bunch of hoops to get them", not to allow people to move to Britain and find jobs.
A lot of people will agree with that system, but like I say don't be surprised that the people you wouldn't let in don't pay you taxes.
If a small business wants someone high skilled, and can't get them here, they will quite happily fill out a few forms and pay a few hundred quid. The fact is that you need to be about two thirds up the income distribution to be a net benefit to the exchequer in this country, over a lifetime, and we are continuing to let in people earning substantially less than that. People like you just want more immigration and will come up with these superficial arguments to justify it, and then refuse to listen when someone else deconstructs them.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Only 38 MPs voted against passing power over Justice and Home Affairs to the EU. MPs who did not oppose that probably wouldn't be acceptable to UKIP.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The Labour lady supported by the Lib Dem in the Rochester debate-seemingly against the tide-made a strong case for EU immigration. They argued that public services owe a massive debt to the efforts of immigrants and without them our public services would collapse. The audience gave her the cheer of the night.
It occured to me that perhaps it's time for those who don't take the narrow UKIP/Tory view to go on the offensive. There was this ad from the 70's that might be the way to go
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
Unfortunately it's not
I appreciate that kippers have no interest in facts that don't support their dystopian worldview, but an unsupported rejection is particularly weak.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
Unfortunately it's not
I appreciate that kippers have no interest in facts that don't support their dystopian worldview, but an unsupported rejection is particularly weak.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
that's probably got more to do with how the german system is set up. I doubt ours will pass the same test.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
The answer to me is simple. UKIP needs to go green, and they'll draw in a wider spectrum of new voters. It's one thing having the main parties unable to progress vis a vis each other as voters drift off to new hunting grounds. But when the new parties are also unable to gain traction, they need to adapt. Either The Greens go eurosceptic (flying piggery), or UKIP goes Green which it easily could do. There is nothing in immigration politics, or in euroscepticism which precludes Greenery. GMOs. Fracking. And so on.
You're having a laugh, UKIP's two main blocks at the moment the WWC and the Shire Tories both despise green politics and would run a mile if it was even suggested.
That used to be true. The shires are up in arms about fracking. 120 Tory MPs face active fracking opposition in their constituencies, and the number of people becoming aware of the threat to their health and future supplies of water, with all of Britain's aquifers under threat, is growing fast. This is one reason the Greens are surging as the only opponents of GMOs and fracking.
'What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?'
By-elections as with the Euro elections are a free hit,nothing is going to change so voters act accordingly.
Keep believing that and I predict you will lose a lot of money at the GE
Nevertheless, Mike and richard are fabled political gamblers, and I think they were aware this was a by election, and took that into account don't you?
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
Seems an obvious solution really. Why are we paying for hotels in France so they can wash and change before boarding the nearest lorry in Calais?
No doubt this makes me a racist and a little Englander.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Meanwhile, Christian "Silence, poor people" Horner is throwing a hissyfit (as are others) over engine regulations everybody signed up to. I'm sure this is entirely unrelated to the Mercedes being fastest, most powerful, most efficient and cheapest. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/29993990
More development also means more cost, so this may be bad for teams not backed by a billionaire.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Company's like yours are a disgrace.
Much better to have large multinationals who shelter their profits in Ireland and Luxemburg, make strange arrangements with VAT and then import their employees so the rest of us can pay for them being here.
'What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?'
By-elections as with the Euro elections are a free hit,nothing is going to change so voters act accordingly.
Keep believing that and I predict you will lose a lot of money at the GE
Nevertheless, Mike and richard are fabled political gamblers, and I think they were aware this was a by election, and took that into account don't you?
So why were they so wrong?
Are you not looking at things through Ukip tinged glasses though - is that a good betting strategy?
When a big issue seller gets £550 a week benefits but counts as employed, only an out of touch agenda driven fool would believe the employment figures are any more than more smoke and mirrors from Osborne
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
You're highlighting 5 million people of working age, are on out of work benefits.
That's not a statistic that supports open door immigration.
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
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 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.
Rog and Rod agree.
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
Reckless is the sort of candidate that the majority want as their MP.
An MP that does spectacular U turns over housing developments? One does wonder about the constituents in Rochester.
"The only victor of the evening’s events was elsewhere. Nigel Farage is undoubtedly a skilful political operator who has tapped into genuine popular concern about immigration and closer European integration. But sometimes he must wonder whether his supposed adversaries are secret Ukip supporters, given the open goals with which they present him. Last night was perhaps the most egregious so far, and will only help to convince many voters that it is now not Europe, or immigration, that matters most, but a lack of trust in the political system itself."
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Because your individual experience isn't repeated on a macro scale.
Never understood why the Right doesn't understand the fallacy of composition.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Good - the ramification of this ruling could be quite significant across the entire EU if taken up by other countries.
The free movement of labour is a cornerstone of the EU ethos, the free movement of unemployed economic migrants wishing to take advantage of countries with the most generous welfare state, is not. – Glad to see the ECJ has finally recognised this fact.
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
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 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.
Rog and Rod agree.
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
Reckless is the sort of candidate that the majority want as their MP.
An MP that does spectacular U turns over housing developments? One does wonder about the constituents in Rochester.
I've always wanted a snivelling coward who lies then jumps ship at the first whiff that he might lose his cushy gig as an MP - who hasn't ?
Comments
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4261394.ece
So, will the turnout in 2015 be up or down? Will LAB/CON/LD lose support, but will that support go to UKIP and Greens as their polices (or lack of) are exposed in 2015? Or will many people just not vote as there seems to be no solution in sight, but to emigrate.
Currently Cons are losing support to UKIP, Labour is losing support to UKIP, Greens and SNP and the LDs are losing support to LAB, Cons, UKIP and Greens.
Certainly hard fiscal policies are required and that does not include pay increases which as a country competing globally cannot be afforded. We have to do more with less and that includes education. Most of the child care costs could be eliminated if school hours were extended to say 8.15 am to 5pm. Screams from the NUT etc, but this is facing reality which happens in other countries.
There has to be more aspiration regarding the educated and the educators across all skill sets and all ages.
We are a small island and cannot take more immigrants - especially the uneducated and unskilled. Those on JSA must take up jobs that are offered and are within their skill sets and physical ability, notwithstanding location.
Child allowance has to stop after the first two children and tax credits recalculated so that it benefits those who do work - even part time.
However none of the none of the 5 UK-wide parties will have the courage to even propose such necessary measures.
I treat members of my own family more generously than complete strangers.
Cue the usual Kippers are racist bull.
11.11.14 LAB 320 (320) CON 268(268) LD 31(31) UKIP 2(2) Others 29 (Ed is crap is PM)
Last weeks BJESUS in brackets
BJESUS (Big John Election Service Uniform Swing)
Using current polling adjusted for 177 days left to go factor and using UKPR standard swingometer
Political suicide I know but I would not rule it out.
I suspect if there is a slight down-tick from this it will be the Tories.The response of the audience would indicate popularity with the Green candidate.From Restless' point of view he just needed not to drop a clanger he hasn't already dropped and he didn't.
The VI Now/2010 implies CON 31 LAB 30.
Most likely outcome of election is a devo/EV4EL/EU referendum carve up.
"Under Ukip rules would David Moyes be allowed to take this Real Sociadad job ? Unfettered EU immigrant going over to Spain taking their jobs.."
If I was a Real Sociadad supporter I'd be rooting for UKIP
My Hungarian plumber does a great job at a great price - but he earns less than David Moyes - hope he finishes the shower installation before next May - Nige will be frogmarching him to a holding pen on the Isle of Wight.
That doesn't mean they're all enthusiastic, though quite a lot are, partly because it's seen locally as a duel between two people who are locally well-known and most people have a view on that. It's good fun, and the voters are far from detached. I think Hung Parliament is far too short - people are being led by a false intuition that parties can't win with say 32% of the vote, which doesn't take into account the arrival of 4-party politics. Let's assume that the probable LibDem collapse is balanced by a rise in SNP/UKIP seats. It still only requires a small swing either way to create a majority. HP punters are betting on all the effects - economy, leaders, NHS, UKIP, LibDems, Europe, black swans - almost exactly cancelling each other out. In my view it's unlikely.
BTW one of the reasons for the big non-EU deficit is that British immigration policy tries to discourage "economic migrants" (people who want to get a job, start a business, pay taxes etc). The people who can still get in reasonably reliably are the dependents (spouses and children) of British nationals, who are by definition... dependent. The really perverse recent development is to strictly enforce limits on dependents based on the salary of the British national while ignoring the earning potential of the foreign spouse, so a British person earning a reasonable can bring their foreign spouse over at a net cost to the taxpayer, but a British person without much money can't bring over a skilled foreign spouse who would support them (and the exchequer).
Note the contrast with EU immigration, where the government isn't allowed to have an immigration policy, so politicians don't have the opportunity to cook up an arrangement that will end up costing taxpayers billions of pounds, and Britain ends up inadvertently making a profit on the arrangement.
The long grass always looks so appealing.
"And white ?"
Very white
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11209234/Immigration-from-outside-Europe-cost-120-billion.html
I do not have any idea if UKIP will win Clacton only or get double figures so dont want to get involved in that market.
09/11/2014 14:15
More questions raised over the link between U.S. election attack dogs and Tory HQ's nasty tactics in #Rochester: thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/polit…
1) On the non-EU stuff, the reason for various cackhanded ways of dealing with immigration reduction is because membership of the European Union requires us to abide by court rulings on how "the right to a family life" is interpreted, which basically means it's very hard to come up with a sensible system that will benefit this country. You end up having to come up with things that can get past a court challenge, like the income threshold, rather than points system.
2) Those potential immigrants with high earnings potential, with earnings being ignored under family migration, should be able to apply through the economic migration system. You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
3) The reason why non-EU migrants cost a lot more than EU migrants is nothing to do with unfiltered immigration being better than (badly) filtered immigration. It's because of two reasons: (1) a lot of it comes from places like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia, where the women are expected to stay home once they are married, and they have a lot of kids. That means less taxes and more benefits for them. (2) large scale non-EU migration has been happening for longer, so non-EU migrants are on average older, thus requiring more pensions, healthcare and child benefits. The two time periods for EU migrants have shown the contribution is getting smaller already. Give it another ten years and it'll probably be negative.
I just can't work out how. The trade deficit hasn't closed, despite the extraordinary restraint on wages.
Where does the money come from?
As I understand it Osborne front-loaded tax increases, and put off the bulk of the spending cuts until after the 2015 election.
"But why take it as given that we must have a state sector that spends or redistributes as much as 46.5 per cent of GDP (the OECD estimate for the UK for 2014)? A cursory glance at the same OECD figures shows that countries like Australia (36.2), Canada (40.3), New Zealand (41.3) and Switzerland (33.6) all spend significantly less than us as a proportion of GDP. In other words, if we are willing to be more imaginative about the role of the state, further significant spending cuts are clearly achievable."
http://www.cityam.com/1415638679/further-tax-hikes-are-neither-necessary-nor-desirable-whichever-way-you-cut-it
Then forward it on to this debt charity
http://themoneycharity.org.uk/media/Debt-Stats-Full-March-2014.pdf
See table on p4
Thanks
Ed is saved Praise The Lord and pass the ballot papers.
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/the-last-argument-of-central-banks
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
#BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
"Average consumer borrowing (including credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured loans) per UK adult was £3,204 in January. This is up from a revised £3,153 in December."
Unsecured debt rising.
Genuine question.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/press-release/395
The Tories danced around the edges of the edges of the spending limits by inundating the public with literature for their primary
Jim Messina employed people to call voters with leading and derogatory questions about mark Reckless, which he then passed on to Tory HQ... Some might call it push polling
David Cameron and the ministers have visited several times in an effort to throw the kitchen sink at the constituency
"US STYLE" TV attack ads have been made attacking Reckless
Yet people are queing up to bet UKIP AT 1.1 on Betfair
What went wrong?
Richard Nabavi Mike Smithson and Audrey Anne all wrote at length as to why Conservatives had a great chance in Rochester... What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago
Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
"First, charge £150pa per household to register with the NHS"
An NHS poll tax, that should work out well.
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.
Cut £9bn off overseas aid and it's job done. ( £9bn x 5 years = £45bn )
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!
Still wouldn't solve it as we would still need to borrow even while making the cuts. The bill would reduce but at a much slower rate than you expect. Fact is Gordon and Labour sold your grandchildren for votes. I think the people are slowly starting to realise it.
Perhaps we should just revert to groats and start over.
A lot of people will agree with that system, but like I say don't be surprised that the people you wouldn't let in don't pay you taxes.
Unsurprising view of the world there. The problem began when the money coming in fell away sharply after 2008. Tax receipts of all sorts collapsed and that massively increased the debt and the deficit.
If we're only getting round to paying off WW1 debt now, I'm less concerned about today's debt as long as it can be serviced in terms of interest payments.
As for the deficit, City AM invites us to compare apples with oranges when comparing our share of GDP spent "in the state sector" (whatever that means) with the likes of New Zealand and Switzerland. These are very different countries with different populations, different demands and different requirements. It's a traditional old right-wing blue herring to confuse the issue.
Post 2015, the idea would be to raise revenues and reduce spending so we can devote more to paying down the debt - fair enough, no problem. Yet we have the absurd notions of ring fencing significant areas of public expenditure plus the usual old right-wing demand for increased defence expenditure.
I don't see how the circle can be squared without either a) opening the whole of the public sector to potential cuts or b) significant tax rises. The problem is both are the political equivalent of suicide. One could argue a confident leader of conviction could carry across such a message but as we don't have any of those at the moment, that won't happen. In any case, a British electorate, many of whom have yet to see any evidence of "recovery", won't be thrilled at the prospect of tax rises or even perhaps cuts to the NHS.
So we're back to the usual demonising of the public sector and welfare claimants which passes for debate and argument. As for the public sector, £1.7 billion is roughly what Surrey County Council spends in a year if you want a bit of perspective.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
It occured to me that perhaps it's time for those who don't take the narrow UKIP/Tory view to go on the offensive. There was this ad from the 70's that might be the way to go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NebZb7dnd8
http://conservativewoman.co.uk/jill-kirby-pro-immigrant-lobby-dont-say-two-thirds-income-minimum-wage-family-handouts/
'What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?'
By-elections as with the Euro elections are a free hit,nothing is going to change so voters act accordingly.
Nevertheless, Mike and richard are fabled political gamblers, and I think they were aware this was a by election, and took that into account don't you?
So why were they so wrong?
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
Seems an obvious solution really. Why are we paying for hotels in France so they can wash and change before boarding the nearest lorry in Calais?
No doubt this makes me a racist and a little Englander.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of
386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Meanwhile, Christian "Silence, poor people" Horner is throwing a hissyfit (as are others) over engine regulations everybody signed up to. I'm sure this is entirely unrelated to the Mercedes being fastest, most powerful, most efficient and cheapest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/29993990
More development also means more cost, so this may be bad for teams not backed by a billionaire.
Much better to have large multinationals who shelter their profits in Ireland and Luxemburg, make strange arrangements with VAT and then import their employees so the rest of us can pay for them being here.
Spot on,stop the something for nothing bit.
That's not a statistic that supports open door immigration.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11222166/A-Commons-shambles-that-fuels-public-distrust.html
Never understood why the Right doesn't understand the fallacy of composition.
The free movement of labour is a cornerstone of the EU ethos, the free movement of unemployed economic migrants wishing to take advantage of countries with the most generous welfare state, is not. – Glad to see the ECJ has finally recognised this fact.