pap

You never go back, apparently.

I thought it was all Labour's fault? And you're now saying the global financial crisis was somehow caused by those in the financial sector? How's that done, then? The idea of bankers causing a banking crisis won't compute for many.

Actually did feel the same last time out. Unfortunately, the whole "working for the good of the country" bit failed to materialise. Nasty arsed policy with Lib Dems as human shields more the order of the day.

Or the Tories, when they decided it was a big thing. Or the Lib Dems, when they were railing about how the Lisbon Treaty was effectively the EU Constitution in all but name. I'd actually say fair play to Labour during this campaign for not using the EU as a political football. That said, all the mainstream parties have tried to capitalise on it and have weaseled out when push came to shove.

Eastleigh wouldn't suddenly get to be Barcelona because they put a statement out saying that's what they'd do. They'd still be shít. Similarly, anything these boys do will be similarly shít, even if it looks like a good idea on paper.

I don't mind being called a hypocrite, especially not by you. It doesn't matter. Anyway, here are those policies:- Taxation Raise personal allowance to £12.5k AGREE and 40% tax threshold to £50k DISAGREE - AGREE (helps low and middle income families) - DISAGREE Increase inheritance tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1m - DISAGREE (leave as is, for now) DISAGREE (tax for rich) Legislate to keep people working 30 hours on minimum wage out of income tax - AGREE (helps incentivise people to work) Isn't that the same as personal allowance No rise in VAT or National Insurance contributions. - AGREE (Leave as is) DISAGREE. VAT should be lowered. It is 20%, FFS. Should also be removed entirely from utility bills Transport Deliver the biggest programme of investment in roads since the 1970s - DISAGREE AGREE with infrastructure. DISAGREE on focus. Faster travel into London should not be priority. Deliver the biggest investment in railways since the Victorians, including 850 miles of electrified railways - DISAGREE Reform strike laws, including on the transport network - DISAGREE (leave as is for now) Start work on High Speed 2 rail lines and continue development for a "HS3" Leeds-Manchester link - DISAGREE Rural Affairs Invest £2.3 billion in over 1,400 flood defence schemes to protect 300,000 homes - DISAGREE (if you want to live by the seaside, why should I pay for it?) - AGREE - British are a seafaring people on an island nation. 300,000 homes and the integrity of affected areas is worth protecting. Any R&D resulting from this can be sold on. Work to improve and simplify the Common Agriculture Policy - AGREE AGREE - but not even worth discussing. Won't change without EU Commission. Tories won't change that. Hold a free vote on repealing the Hunting Act - DISAGREE (more important things to worry about) DISAGREE. Vile practice carried out by vile people. Provide near-universal superfast broadband by 2020 and secure the future of 3,000 rural Post Offices - AGREE (critical for business innovation) AGREE on both. EU Hold an "in-out" referendum on Britain’s renegotiated EU membership by 2017 - AGREE Won't happen. EU exit definitely won't happen. Disregarded. Protect the UK economy from further integration of the Eurozone. Expand the Single Market - AGREE Bullshít policy. Member states have no right to reject new member. See Maastricht. Scrap Human Rights Act and replace with a British Bill of Rights - DISAGREE (more important things to worry about) DISAGREE. Resist EU attempts to restrict legitimate financial services activities - AGREE (we are more exposed to FS) DISAGREE. FS is a fiction that we need to get off of. Defence Second new aircraft carrier will be brought into active service - DISAGREE (Can't afford it at the moment) DISAGREE - until UK's defence mission clearly enumerated. Replace Trident with four submarines to maintain continuous at sea nuclear deterrent - AGREE (keeps us at the top table) DISAGREE. Waste of money. Probably won't work if push comes to shove. Work for peace in Syria and Iraq and pursue a comprehensive strategy to defeat Islamic State - AGREE DISAGREE - wrong focus in Middle East, but all parties are going for this. Create new award for service in the reserve forces - DISAGREE Who cares? Apart from Tories and reserve forces people. Very limited appeal. I'm ambivalent. Education Protect school funding per pupil - AGREE AGREE in principle. Seen class sizes rise in practice. Don't trust Tories on education. Create at least a further 500 free schools in England by 2020 - DISAGREE DISAGREE - Let the freaks pay for their own schools. Zero tolerance for failure – immediate support to turn around failing or coasting schools - AGREE - This is a policy? Weren't we doing this already? 30 hours free childcare for working parents of 3&4-year-olds - AGREE - AGREE in principle, but doesn't go far enough. 5 year old kids don't finish school at the same time as their parents. Would much rather see state-run nursery facilities, as in Denmark. Welfare Make £12bn welfare savings - DISAGREE (without knowing where it comes from) We know where it'll come from. £23k cap on benefits. Kids/employment help facilities shut down. Loads of fkn nutters roaming the streets in 20-30 years time. DISAGREE. Maintain the freeze in working-age benefits for two years - AGREE (especially with zero inflation at the moment) DISAGREE - people will continue to have less money Household benefit cap cut from £26,000 to £23,000 a year - DISAGREE (keep the cap as families budget on this, but dont increase for the foreseeable) DISAGREE - the £26K thing sounded great on paper. Just pushed certain families toward destitution. Large families will be hit hard by the cap. Replace JSA for 18-21-year-olds with a Youth Allowance limited to 6 months & end automatic Housing Benefit for this age group - DISAGREE (We need to inspire the young, not punish them) DISAGREE, but also disagree with your reasoning. Likely only people getting punished here are the parents. Health Increase NHS spending in England by at least £8bn above inflation over the next five years - AGREE Not when most of that will be lining private industry pockets after the exemplary horror story has been wheeled out. It's AGREE in principle, but no confidence in those doing the implementation. Seven-day access to GPs by 2020 & same day appointments for over-75s when needed - DISAGREE DISAGREE - More pensioner bribery. Integrate health and social care - AGREE (If it reduces costs) DISAGREE - Just fkn fund social care. Easier. Improve access to mental health treatments - AGREE AGREE - but again, this is a policy.

It's not really a franchise then, is it? Having worked for an actual franchiser, we used to sell Master Franchises for an entire region, who would then have the right to licence new franchisees in the country. The parent company would always get a kick-back, but it was laid out, defined and anything over the top went to the master franchiser, because hey, they brought the franchise! Sounds like Starbucks are doing franchising, without the actual franchising, to avoid all the profit they would have paid. Nice work if you can get it (you can't get it, that franchise isn't really for sale).

So Starbucks defense is that their business, one driven on a huge fkn profit margin, can't make a profit here? Brilliant. I don't know why like you, I didn't believe that immediately.

Profits made in the country, just like most other businesses have to find. If a corporation cannot commit to paying 20% of their profits here, they can fúck off. Other people can make coffee.

Sadly, it would, especially after seeing the crude implementations of policy they managed in the first five years. I've said again and again that I have no problem with the principle of some of the cuts. It's where they're directed and how they're implemented. That's not to say that the Labour Party are a panacea on implementation. Far from it, but we've seen the Tories in recent action. Drove the economy into the ground in the first few years, borrowed more money than Labour managed in 13, then switched the taps back on just before the election claiming some kind of miraculous recovery. I don't trust the things they say, or that they'll do them in the right way.

They are a corporation that operates in the country, making a great deal of money from the framework it provides. That'll be 20% corporation tax please. Or fúck off. It really is that simple.

We disagree again. There's a need.

Arf. It's beautiful to watch. "I'm for small government. Tories are small government!" "Er. What about this huge nanny state housing association bribe thing, which is very big government". "No one is arguing zero government!". Jog the fk on, you joker.

That's not what they're doing though, is it? How "small government" is it to buy housing association properties that the tax payer doesn't own, so they can be sold to a subset of the tax-payers at a knockdown price?

That's not my point at all. The point is that for all the bluster, and by fúck there has been a lot of it, the Tories on here haven't been able to champion Tory policies. Because they're all shít. Look at what you've all reduced yourselves to. You're not arguing for anything you stand for, just against who you don't like. Because that's (right-wing) politics.

So it's incumbent on the citizen, not HMRC, to work out who is paying their taxes and shop accordingly? Top right wing logic there. Top stuff. Really* *not really

You're both missing a huge point, which is if we collected the correct rate of corporation tax, from everybody, we'd likely not need to raise it.

The only acceptable use of zero contracts is in a one-off or cyclical event. As a usual contract of employment, they're indefensible.

Yeah, you are supposed to be discussing the policies you are voting for, not using the thread as some sounding board for half-baked political ideas and the odd go at whatever Labour is doing. You're also mistaken in your assertion that left and right screaming at each other is the only sort of political discourse. What I've found telling, throughout, is that those planning to vote (or have already voted) Conservative today have so little to vote for, that this ("wah, there are no good policies") is the result. A Labour voter can go out and vote to end to the bedroom tax today and kill the vast majority of zero hours contracts, giving anyone presently on one a great deal more economic certainty. Those are simple vote winners that'll appeal to people. They're just being floated by a party you don't like, hence the Johnny Bognor bullshít and plate-spinning act.

I don't think you've really understood what this is about. You're an exporter. Big whoop. So am I. When you've finished absorbing that fact, perhaps you'll come back to this thread and realise it was about a general election that happened a few years ago.

Seriously, I don't want it to be as reductive as that. Just as executive power cannot be transferred via sword doled out by a watery tart (Michael Palin's words, not mine, take it up with him), we don't really own threads around here. Other posters, that's all the rage. We wear our latest cunning insults as hats. Thread ownage? It's not a custom, and I'm not comfy with being on a shortlist of two decided by a onelist of one when so many others have contributed, on issues that affect all. If there's to be a poll, I think it best if every contributor was included.

Ah, give it to Ex Lion Tamer. He is nicer and more patient than I, especially when putting serious points across. I'm just pleased to be playing.

"That thing's operational" "It's a trap!" Death Star sets targeting level "brown", on Grand Moff Farage's command.

Cheers, JB, but I'm just a Googler/Storyboarder/Inker. I searched "sad Batman" on Google, and found that little collection of wonders, organised them into a chronology, and drew rounded rectangles. Jamie wrote the vast majority of material.

More cuts for kids now equals more social problems, and more fully grown and entirely avoidable dangers to society down the line. Mind you, if there's as little consideration for the short-term knock-on effects, perhaps we're asking too much with all this long-term malarkey.