the snap general election thread

fun4everyone

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

General election poll: Tories will fall 22 seats short of a majority, says latest YouGov model

The poll of polls however show a Conservative majority, marginally increasing their seats from 330 to 347 and with a 3% margin of error either way, will likely increase their majority anywhere to gain between 336 and 357 seats.

Damn so this is why Labour are getting longer and longer in the betting

GreatApe

Chrysalis wrote: »

Remember with things like petrol not taxed, and no VAT cost of living will go down, things will be cheaper in the shops, electricity, gas bills would be lower amongst other benefits.

In addition you are blinded by the view that income tax is nasty, its easy to think that all other taxes in comparison are not relevant but they are, the likes of council tax and VAT, hit the poor dis proportionally and affects them quite badly. Income tax is tiered to income and as such is very much linked to affordability. So if it means e.g. the middle class would be worse off ( I done no specific calculations to verify this), then really it means they under contributing now.

Many people now probably pay more in other taxes than they do in income tax.

It is easy to think economic booms are down to lower taxes, I think there is no proven link, in addition in periods of low income taxation you tend to find more wealthier people are happy, those same people tend to also be more influential so gives the impression everyone is better off, but in reality the poorer of society are normally worse of in such times. Right now we are actually taxed more than in 1981 even tho back then income tax was much higher.

The difference is how the burden is spread (spending related taxes tend to favour the rich), and that people dont really know where they stand as so many different things in life get taxed.

I did think there was room for compromise when seeing the "I dont like paying into the state out of inheritance" posts, but the responses I have got seem to indicate its more down to just wanting to keep more money aka looking after one self and family.

No proposals of alternatives rather just "keep the same" or "it wouldnt work". Even claims that we apparently have the size of the state right when we have a massive NHS funding crisis and huge shortage of state built properties.

If you dont think we need more council houses check the replies from Guest101 in this thread, clearly relying on a market supply thats driven by profit is not the way forward. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5657677

These sort of comments are probably considered fine when you a homeowner and also if you feel the NHS doesnt have much more to offer you (maybe you can afford private care, or late in life so dont care much for the future, I dont know).

I am too old to benefit from free university, but it doesnt mean I agree with the treatment of young people, I care about the future of the UK even after the point I am expected to die. The amount of help young people get has gradually decreased visible even in the time I have been alive.

We had one bed rates for housing benefit for 25+, now its 35+, presumably in 10 years it will be 45+ its deliberately been moved to keep a certain generation used to less help, now very young adults dont get any housing benefit at all, the current young have no final salary pensions and will have a much later retirement age, and less job security.

All I can say is we not all selfish and some of us do care about the wider society. So not all hope is lost yet.

An example is the proposed tax hike from before the general election, I was one of the people targeted by the hike, and found myself massively outnumbered in supporting it, all other affected people were doing was crying "I will be worse off". Every budget it seems if everyone just checks to see if they better off or worse off and thats it, thats all they care about.

Well given each person has one vote no matter how poor or how rich if we all voted in our self interest then the outcome should be good for the majority

The idea of placing even more taxes 'on the rich' while popular is economically illiterate. " The Rich' will either leave or stop working. The upper rate of income tax is already 40% and the additional rate 45%. if you doubled income taxes to cut VAT for instance, then you would have the upper rate at 80% and the additional rate at 90% which is clearly ridiculous.

Trying to a argue oh don't worry the price of your can of coke will go from 50p to 45p without vat to someone who now has to pay 90% marginal tax is stupid.

On a more broad picture we can say of the larger advanced economies we have the USA at 35% government to France at 55% and countries like the UK and Germany at about the mid point. Even the French figure is somewhat skewed by the fact that the French government owns at arms length some large companies like EDF I'm not sure that is a valid sort of comparison those types of arms length government owned listed companies probably should be in the % figure

GreatApe

gfplux wrote: »

Amazing, we have common ground.
I can not for the life of me understand how this strange practice has grown up in Britain. The NHS hog tied by the "free at delivery " mantra making ANY discussion about money impossible and then the NHS ADD to the costs by providing free official, expensive, translation in a number of languages. (How many can someone tell us)
Britain must be the only country in the world that provides this service.

There are plenty of foreign workers in the NHS

Judging by the doctors names in my local GP perhaps 3/4ths are foreign.

It wouldn't take a lot of work to place people of language x with one of the doctors that can also speak x. I suspect it already happens. Maybe a bit harder in A&E type situations.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

wotsthat wrote: »

Spoiling your paper sends a message you didn't want to vote for any of the candidates rather than just not being bothered to turn up.

I'm going to be interested to see how many ballot papers will be spoilt. I have an idea it might be higher than usual. I'm not completely decided yet but I think I might spoil my paper for the firs time ever.

Have you thought how you'd spoil your paper? I'm not sure whether a rude drawing or a limerick would be best.

If I absolutely had to vote, it would be Green. I know some of their policies are bonkers, but I do respect the fact that they've created a new party from nowhere and gained an MP.

Filo25

Summary of the various forecasts for seats are shown below.


Con majority
Thrasher local 48
Ashcroft 48-78
Fisher 71
Elec Calc 72
Hanretty 100
Marriott 105

YouGov = Hung

economic

ive been on a 40% tax bracket for most my working life. i even find this way too high. when i think of my earnings i think of it on a post tax basis always and earning 50k post tax just seems pointless now given how much i have saved/built wealth. if taxes were more like 20% on higher income then it would look a lot more appealing. but right now i have no desire to work at these high leves of taxation.

its not merely just the high tax thats the problem - tis what value you get out of it from the public services it should provide. i feel far too much is being given out freely as handouts, over the many years. and far too much wasted in admin and other public sector work which can easily be made efficient.

i hae also received very poor service from NHS because of many people needing treatment as well. this again adds to the lack of motivation to work and being taxed 40% income.

kabayiri

gfplux wrote: »

Amazing, we have common ground.
I can not for the life of me understand how this strange practice has grown up in Britain. The NHS hog tied by the "free at delivery " mantra making ANY discussion about money impossible and then the NHS ADD to the costs by providing free official, expensive, translation in a number of languages. (How many can someone tell us)
Britain must be the only country in the world that provides this service.

I could tell you the costs for National Census (not in a public forum though, this has to remain commercially sensitive information).

Using it as a guide, you are looking at translation support for at least 30 languages. You can organize this efficiently using telephone based services, but there aren't that many companies who have 5,000+ translation staff available. The ones that do are expensive.

Printed material is much higher if you want full coverage. Between 70 and 105 would be a good indicator.

When you conduct a discussion with someone via a translator on the phone, the interview typically takes about 3 times as long. So your productivity goes down.

Having said all this, telephone support is massively cheaper than using local translators. They can charge £45 per hour upwards.

michaels

posh*spice wrote: »

Corbyn has chucked Diane Abbott under a bus - and appointed Lyn Brown as home sec - who??????

:rotfl::rotfl:

Respect.

I thought having bedded her he felt duty bound to get her a job but it seems he may actually beleive in a meritocracy rather than jobs for those willing to suck up to the boss.

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

Respect.

I thought having bedded her he felt duty bound to get her a job but it seems he may actually beleive in a meritocracy rather than jobs for those willing to suck up to the boss.

How Clinton-esque !!

I thought we had drifted back to the USA POTUS election for a minute.

Arklight

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

Have you thought how you'd spoil your paper? I'm not sure whether a rude drawing or a limerick would be best.

If I absolutely had to vote, it would be Green. I know some of their policies are bonkers, but I do respect the fact that they've created a new party from nowhere and gained an MP.

If you want to spoil your paper make sure you do so clearly by writing NONE over it. Otherwise you'll just end up in the pile of people who the officials believe weren't capable of putting an X inside a box.


UKIP loses thousands of votes due to this every election.