Cameron: Second home "not necessarily a splendid investment for the whole economy"

MissMoneypenny

Did you ever imagine that your party would end up potentially almost trebling capital gains tax, I asked Mike Sharp, another councillor? "No," he said. "We've actually got a second home, a flat down in Whitstable. That's my pension. If you are looking for a quick gain, you should be charged – but if you've held something for five years and it's gone up by £50,000, you shouldn't have to pay."

"Canterbury and Whitstable, like a lot of places along the Thames estuary, are full of working-class whites who have moved out of London. And when they fume about immigrants, they don't just mean ethnic minorities. "Second home owners in Whitstable are deeply unpopular with local people," says Brazier. "They call them the DFLs – down-from-Londons."

So some effects of the tax rises could actually be popular with the electorate."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/7753489/Tax-changes-causing-unease-in-Tory-heartlands.html

Alan_Cross

Virtually all the buy-to-letters I know are Tory voters. Has Tweedlecam considered this, one wonders..?

ILW

Alan_Cross wrote: »

Virtually all the buy-to-letters I know are Tory voters. Has Tweedlecam considered this, one wonders..?

They would never vote labour though.

Sir_Humphrey

One of the odd things about politics nowadays is that it is far easier to shaft your own natural supporters than those who naturally oppose you.

Blair understood this.

StevieJ

Classic - The local MP trying to deflect the CGT rise away on to immigration:eek:

lemonjelly

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

One of the odd thing about politics nowadays is that it is far easier to shaft your own natural supporters than those who naturally oppose you.

Blair understood this.

Blair was the ultimate in non-discriminatory behaviour.

Didn't matter who you were, where you came from. He'd fcuk you. He'd fcuk you good.

ILW

StevieJ wrote: »

Classic - The local MP trying to deflect the CGT rise away on to immigration:eek:

Think he was talking about people "emigrating" from London to the south coast.

StevieJ

ILW wrote: »

Think he was talking about people "emigrating" from London to the south coast.

As well as

the_flying_pig

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

One of the odd things about politics nowadays is that it is far easier to shaft your own natural supporters than those who naturally oppose you.

Blair understood this.

imagine there are three groups of people in the country:

(a) some who'll always vote for you no matter what happens;
(b) some who'll never vote for you regardless of what happens; and
(c) some who may or may not vote for you depending on your policies & so on.

given the many very difficult trade offs you face as a politician would you waste any time trying to keep group (a) or (b), i.e. the people whose vote you can't influence no matter what you do, happy or would you focus on (c)?

carolt

Trouble with that is that if 'your' party thereby ignores you, you end up having to change the habits of the lifetime and vote elsewhere.

The old days of permanent party allegiance (even passed down through generations) are long gone.

It's time parties woke up to this fact.

exil

Well, there are enough diehard Labour and Tory voters to ensure neither party drops below about 30% of those who bother to vote.
Anyway - to CGT. I've never understood why capital gains (eg from houses) are treated more favourably than income from employment or businesses. And if we're looking at it in terms of votes, the number of voters who are likely to be significantly hit by this is very small indeed.