the snap general election thread

BobQ

mrginge wrote: »

Listen there's no problem if you feel that social care should be paid for as with NHS care by general taxation.
But please don't make out that that alternative is any fairer on those that die of a heart attack and never get the chance to use their lifetime of contribution.

General taxation is an option I agree. I personally favour a ring fenced social care fund from which we can all draw a reasonable income to fund care costs whether they last 5 weeks or 5 years. Funding it by a levy on the estates of ALL of us with assets above say £10000 would in effect be no different than us buying an annuity to cover the potential costs.

If we all paid 5% after we die our beneficiaries will still get 95%. How that denies you the opportunity of spending a lifetime of contribution I do not know. The very rich will always get around this if they want with offshore trusts so I do not see your problem or why you think I am "pretending".

.string.

BobQ wrote: »

... I do wonder if this will be the last election in which the print media have any influence.

Interesting point. It was mentioned on the Beeb that entities like Facebook should maybe have a responsibility for "News" posted on their sites. Maybe that should be this site as well, bearing in mind some of the opinions masquerading as "facts"...... Fake News actually.

For elections, it's an important concern I think.

The rational is that many get their "News" from such sources and thus their opinions. So maybe there will be some serious moves to bring the Facebook's of this world into the same legal regime as newspapers.

A difficult matter, but I personally would like to see some form of News License to be instituted which would allow us all to see that a site has some form of truth threshold level and is committed to it.

BobQ

masterwilde wrote: »

gotta agree with you there, i actually thought corbyn was ahead until he was pressed. i actually thought after that that labour have just lost the election

I guess it depends on whether you think it is more important to have decent social care, education and health and a mutually beneficial Brexit deal. If your priority is a retaliatory strike that kills a few million foreigners in North Korea I can quite understand you not finding Corbyn's response convincing.

Of course in an interconnected world the prospect of us doing anything before the superpowers have responded is another matter.

michaels

I predict a poll tonight giving Labour a lead.

I know the Tories are poor but it just goes to show that conventional wisdom on how to win elections has been wrong for a while. Miliband and Brown didn't win because they thought they had to appear responsible to appeal to the middle. IN fact it appears that promising the moon on a stick whilst suggesting that 'other people' will pay for it is a winning strategy. Who would have thought it?

Moby

So is Fallon right when he said that there will be no increase in income tax for the rich under the tories because May has refused to confirm this today.Are more wheels falling off the Tory manifesto?
This morning Fallon says there will be no tax rises for high earners. Then May says there is “no change”. So which is it? Either Fallon was “mistaken” (insert your own preferred adjective here), or those really are the Tory plans and May is living up to her record.

I honestly cannot believe that May would once again use the previously ridiculed “nothing has changed” line. Irrespective of the true position, that is simple asking for trouble.
Another major manifesto shambles could plausibly precipitate another shift in the polls. If people get the sense that the Tory manifesto cannot be relied on, that’s a major blow to credibility.

ThinkingOutLoud_2

.string. wrote: »

Yes, it depends on what wine you get and where it comes from, how much tax you pay etc, not just the currency issue.

I'm in Spain at the moment ....
So add a currency variant on that and you still have reasonably priced wine.

The point is that shops will charge what they can get away with.

Agreed. Not rocket science - if you do not have to transport wine and put it on a shelf hundreds or thousands of miles away - then just like cider on a cider farm the price will be lower - much lower.

And there will be less middlemen needing to make their turn on it.

.string.

BobQ wrote: »

General taxation is an option I agree. I personally favour a ring fenced social care fund from which we can all draw a reasonable income to fund care costs whether they last 5 weeks or 5 years. Funding it by a levy on the estates of ALL of us with assets above say £10000 would in effect be no different than us buying an annuity to cover the potential costs.

If we all paid 5% after we die our beneficiaries will still get 95%. How that denies you the opportunity of spending a lifetime of contribution I do not know. The very rich will always get around this if they want with offshore trusts so I do not see your problem or why you think I am "pretending".

General taxation would be identified as, and treated as, an NHS supplement, payable by all and applied in addition to the income tax. Maybe it could be done by equal £X reduction in all bands which would mean larger payments by richer people under what are already decided are fair differential rates.

On a slightly different issue; I have a health insurance specifically for old-age or medical care if I and/or my wife need it. So I am interested in benefitting from that. I don't want to be told that I am out of the system because I have become, by that act, a bloated parasitic capacitance. As I see it I have done precisely what others should have done. So I'm interested in how such private schemes would dovetail with a national scheme. I have no problems with paying my share of the national scheme for the good of everyone.

A bit of synergy is called for.

That raises the concept of treating care for the elderly as a publicly run insurance scheme, not as a pot of money hidden away in Government coffers.

Thrugelmir

ThinkingOutLoud wrote: »

Agreed. Not rocket science - if you do not have to transport wine and put it on a shelf hundreds or thousands of miles away - then just like cider on a cider farm the price will be lower - much lower.

And there will be less middlemen needing to make their turn on it.

Where does Spain raise it's taxation revenue from? Having cheap wine is one matter. Something else will be relatively more expensive.

kabayiri

Moby wrote: »

I read your source and note as is my experience it says, things are different once nurses reach the higher levels. The problem is most don't, they leave and are replaced by sessional staff. There is so much staff churn in public services. It has to change.

The recession from the GFC played out in 2 different ways IMO.

Many from the private sector were hit hard in '09. I saw the way contracts were being evaluated for risk changing overnight.

My friends who both work in the PS told me they saw *nothing*.

Well, they were just being cushioned. The hit on PS workers was slower and more drawn out, and has been for years.

In a situation where we borrow more than we raise, every single year, paying nurses more means paying some other group less.

So who will it be?

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

I predict a poll tonight giving Labour a lead.

I know the Tories are poor but it just goes to show that conventional wisdom on how to win elections has been wrong for a while. Miliband and Brown didn't win because they thought they had to appear responsible to appeal to the middle. IN fact it appears that promising the moon on a stick whilst suggesting that 'other people' will pay for it is a winning strategy. Who would have thought it?

Plus...there's a new group of voters who have never known high interest rates, or a real collapse in house prices.

So maybe their attitude to risk is different?

I noticed the report last week about record high credit card debt, including people using cards to pay for consumables. There's an ad which suggests using PDL rather than breakdown cover to repair a broken heating boiler.

At some point, all this must change the psyche mustn't it?