U KIP if you want to, I'm voting Labour.

marleyboy

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

They may also be the ones inheriting their grandma's savings!

I thought that was now part of paying for the Old peoples care homes, I seem to remember my Gran wasn't allowed to leave her home to her family as it was to be sold off to pay for her care.

Oldernotwiser

marleyboy wrote: »

I thought that was now part of paying for the Old peoples care homes, I seem to remember my Gran wasn't allowed to leave her home to her family as it was to be sold off to pay for her care.

But only a tiny minority of people have to go into care homes; about 5%, I think.

DCodd

Come on people! are you telling me that you truly believe that any other party would have stopped the bankers and traders from creating this meltdown?

this is boom and bust - the more you boom the bigger you bust and the biggest boomers have always been the Conservatives!

No-one could have stopped this - in all reality a real 1930s meltdown has been on the cards for decades yet we all chose to ride the money wave and all contributed to our own downfall!!!!

I woukd like the opportunity to vote "none of the above" and have it counted and announced!!!!

tempuscat

It did seem to me that the posters on this thread were expressing a view of general dissatisfaction with the conduct of the principal political parties during the boom years.

Apart from Mr Vincent Cable, an economist, both Government and Opposition have been peopled by fools, many of whom, it now emerges, were enjoying an even bigger boom-time of their own.

Labour had custody of the nation's interests for 12 years and Labour's failure to uphold that duty is on so astonishing a scale that perhaps the original poster might care to consider:

In 1997, the National Debt stood at £350 billion. That is the total amount of indebtedness acrrued by the nation up to that point in its history. And the nation's history is a long one.

In 2009, the National Debt stands at £750 billion.

In just 12 years the UK has managed to accumulate an additional amount of debt equivalent to the entire indebtedness accumulated in its entire history.

That level of indebtedness is to be added to, under the Labour Government's own plans, at a rate of a further £350 billion not every millennium, not every century, not every twelve years, but every two years.

Labour's suicidal incompetence should, of course, have been called to account on many occasions by Her Majesty's Opposition. But it never did.

The mess of regulation that Mr Brown himself insisted upon and which led to an unworkable tripartite overview of Britain's financial institutions should at least have been the subject of some form of apology from this self-proclaimed honourable son of the manse. But he never has apologised.

So I sympathise greatly with the previous post about voting "none of the above".

I cannot begin to comprehend why anyone, be they an IceSaver or not, could remotely consider voting for a political party so inept and so self-serving as to have brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy.

Nor why anyone should vote for a principal Opposition party which, as is abundantly obvious, never really opposed anything at all because, like Labour, it too didn't understand anything at all.

marleyboy

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

But only a tiny minority of people have to go into care homes; about 5%, I think.

I think its slightly bigger than 5%, but regardless should they need health care, they have first got to sell there assets, investments and\or savings that they may have, whether or not they want to leave something behind for the offspring.

Its true that NO government is going to be the right one, they are all as bashful as the other I would happily sign "none of the above" given that option, but as signing none of them defaults the vote to the current government, I am forced to choose a lesser popular party, (its why those smaller parties seem so much more of a threat nowadays).

ollyshaw

DCodd wrote: »

this is boom and bust - the more you boom the bigger you bust and the biggest boomers have always been the Conservatives!!

Have a look at this.

http://www.order-order.com/2009/01/spot-difference-ftse-boom-ftse-bust/

Much of the problems we have today are because Brown (and most of the population) actually believed the spin and genuinely thought that boom and bust had been abolished.

Got to hand it to them though, Labour had an awesome [STRIKE]press machine[/STRIKE] spin factory. People clearly still belive it in spite of massive evidence to the contrary.

Olly

DCodd

ollyshaw wrote: »

Have a look at this.

http://www.order-order.com/2009/01/spot-difference-ftse-boom-ftse-bust/

Much of the problems we have today are because Brown (and most of the population) actually believed the spin and genuinely thought that boom and bust had been abolished.

Got to hand it to them though, Labour had an awesome [STRIKE]press machine[/STRIKE] spin factory. People clearly still belive it in spite of massive evidence to the contrary.

Olly

Exactly right, however you can read those charts numerous ways, you could say, as the article suggests, that Labour had a stable financial legacy from the Conservatives or you could say that Labour were unfortunate to be left with a legacy of continual unchecked unsustainable growth that reached critical mass during their term and that despite their efforts in creating a small recovery, the damage had already been done!

Financial cycles span more than 20 years!

The fact is, it shows that no party or financial institution actualy knows how to combat boom & bust and no one will ever be able to, it is the very nature of Capitalism - The alternative does not bear thinking about!!

ollyshaw

DCodd wrote: »

Financial cycles span more than 20 years!

The fact is, it shows that no party or financial institution actualy knows how to combat boom & bust and no one will ever be able to, it is the very nature of Capitalism - The alternative does not bear thinking about!!

I quite agree. My point really is that Labour's biggest failure was failing to realise that it was not "different this time".

Olly

Oldernotwiser

marleyboy wrote: »

I think its slightly bigger than 5%, but regardless should they need health care, they have first got to sell there assets, investments and\or savings that they may have, whether or not they want to leave something behind for the offspring.

Quite the opposite actually; health care is always free, it's personal care that has to be paid for.

seven-day-weekend

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

NOOOOOOOOOO!! I thought you were such a nice woman!

Sorry ONW! I thought that Mrs Thatcher at the time was the best thing for the country and I actually agreed with the poll tax.(Not necessarily with the way it was administered though).

However I was also one of the people who cried tears of joy when Tony Blair won the 1997 election; I really did think that we had got a Labour Prime Minister who we could be proud of and would do great things.:o

I would consider myself now a floating voter after having been a (usuallly) Labour voter all my life.

As I say, in both the European and General (the ones I have a vote in); I will vote Conservative unless something happens in the meantime to make me change my mind.