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General Election 2015


trousers

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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.

 

Nobody is missing that point, you're just introducing it afresh now.

 

FWIW, I absolutely agree. If we were able to collect corporation tax as it was "morally" due rather than legally due, the Exchequer would have more the play with and we could maybe afford to spend more on the NHS, or welfare, or infrastructure investment, or education. The only obstacle is actually doing it....

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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.

 

Don't disgaree with making people who should pay, pay.

 

But individuals can do their bit. Rather than go to Starbucks (who pay **** all tax), go to Costa Coffee, a British owned company. Starbucks have paid £8m in tax over the last 10 years. Costa have paid £15m in the last year..

 

This is one interesting article in the Mirror, I read a few years ago..

http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/fairer-trading-your-essential-guide-1444646

Edited by Johnny Bognor
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How dare you suggest such an outrageous thing!

 

I think you'd be able to count on the fingers of one finger those on this board who disagreed. Hell, even Osbourne agrees, hence his plans announced last year to try to do something about it.

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Don't disgaree with making people who should pay, pay.

 

But individuals can do their bit. Rather than go to Starbucks (who pay **** all tax), go to Costa Coffee, a British owned company. Starbucks have paid £8m in tax over the last 10 years. Costa have paid £15m in the last year..

 

 

And rather than use Google, use Bing!

 

 

 

:lol:

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I think you'd be able to count on the fingers of one finger those on this board who disagreed. Hell, even Osbourne agrees, hence his plans announced last year to try to do something about it.

 

Which will amount to naff all. The tories will never upset big business which is why any referendum on the EU will be a farce.

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But individuals can do their bit. Rather than go to Starbucks (who pay **** all tax), go to Costa Coffee, a British owned company. Starbucks have paid £8m in tax over the last 10 years. Costa have paid £15m in the last year..

 

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

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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

 

Not at all, I want legislation, but in the meantime, we as citizens can do our bit. You can't complain about starbucks not paying tax, if you're putting money in their pockets knowing that they avoid tax...

But this point also comes back to what I was saying earlier. If we as consumers "buy british", it is good for our economy, because we don't export profits elsewhere.

 

 

If the tories had gone after the bankers who caused the crash and the companies that avoid paying tax they'd have won this election easily. They didn't, they hammered the poor instead and branded them scroungers and feckless.

 

Fair comment

Edited by Johnny Bognor
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If the tories had gone after the bankers who caused the crash and the companies that avoid paying tax they'd have won this election easily. They didn't, they hammered the poor instead and branded them scroungers and feckless.

 

This.

 

The fact that a left wing version of the Labour party lead by a cartoon character combined with a looney left bunch of sweaties have even an outside chance of winning says all you need to know about the Tories.

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If the tories had gone after the bankers who caused the crash and the companies that avoid paying tax they'd have won this election easily. They didn't, they hammered the poor instead and branded them scroungers and feckless.

 

They should have gone after both. Both the rich and the poor are feckless scroungers.

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Oh theres plent. Tory and labour. It's one of the reasons, I can't bring myself to vote for any of them. But the Green Party are the most hypocritical.

 

They expect us to be frugal on a personal level, whilst their policies require extravagent spending on a national level.

 

That is what turns me off most about the Greens. I look at them and see middle-class, materially comfortable, self-righteous hypocrites. I have no doubt that few of them would survive in the wilderness, which is where their policies would take us.

 

Yet you argue in favour of many of their policies. Reduced personal debt and consumerism, tough on bankers and tax avoiders etc etc.

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If the tories had gone after the bankers who caused the crash and the companies that avoid paying tax they'd have won this election easily. They didn't, they hammered the poor instead and branded them scroungers and feckless.

 

It was a lot more complicated than that but people will believe what they want to believe.

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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.

 

Typical assumption from you that only the left know what they are voting for and that everything in the Labour manifesto is brilliant for the country and their policies will be universal vote-winners. But it isn't difficult for anybody capable of simply Googling stuff to find out what the main policy proposals are from the Conservative Party, but maybe you are just not interested. But in case you couldn't find it, here is a summary for you:-

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32302062

 

Anybody who wishes to delve into the manifesto of any party can do that easily enough and make up their own minds as to which party's policies are must attuned to their preferences. It is arrogant of you to pick the voters of a party which is hard to separate in terms of poll voting intention predictions from Labour and then to infer that they don't know what they are doing by voting Conservative.

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It was a lot more complicated than that but people will believe what they want to believe.

 

Not really. Massively leveraging up balance sheets, betting on synthetic derivatives, selling PPI to people who didnt need it, fixing LIBOR. Iceland has it about right. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/02/13/uk-iceland-bankers-idUKKBN0LH0OC20150213

 

Going after the bankers wouldn't have solved the problem but it would have at least introduced a modicum of feeling of equity to the poor taxpayers left cleaning up and still paying now.

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Can those who think that someone should have "gone after the bankers" care to explain what they mean by this? How would you have "made the bankers pay"? In your minds, who are "the bankers"?

 

Are you talking about punishment? Retribution? Reparations?

 

Genuine questions, btw. I'm absolutely not looking to score points with anyone, I just wonder what people think was the correct course of action.

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omg i can't decide who to do a vote for! Turns out you can't vote for the main bros you see on tv where i live, you have to vote for some other bros i never heard of! I was gonna vote for the conservative bro, cos i thought he would put in a good word for me with the main bro whose running the country at the moment, but I've just found out the Labour bro is called Rob Pocock, which is a mark in his favour :thumbup:

 

Here is my choices. We seem to be lacking Diversity, where I live :thumbdown:

 

64 LIBDEM Richard Brighton-Knight (dbl barrel name - would not vote for this bro)

64 UKIPS Marcus John Brown (why mention middle name? would not vote for this bro)

64 CON Andrew Mitchell (looks v.old - would not vote for this bro)

64 LAB Rob Pocock (looks ok might vote for this bro)

64 GREEN David Ratcliff (bald - would not vote for this bro)

176012_64.jpg?1394666625 UBUNTO Mark Sleigh (power of invisibility - might vote for this bro. What is an Ubunto?)

 

I couldn't make my mind up so i voted for Rob Pocock & Mark Sleigh. I also gave David Ratcliff a sympathy vote for his bald, and wrote at the bottom, "If not, pap from saintsweb :thumbup:"

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Oh well, Ben Studebaker has spoken. No further reason to debate on.

 

The words of some young whipper-snapper Yank student who's been in the UK for five minutes and wishes to share all his wordly knowledge of the British political system with the gullible left who really do want to accept everything he says as the gospel truth. :rolleyes:

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True, and they do talk some sense, but there are far too many looney policies for my liking...

 

I hope (unlikely though it is) that they hold the balance of power after the election. There are plenty of good green policies to choose from. I used to know a lot of green activists and without exception they are the most principled politicos Ive ever met - they really lived and believed what they preached. Some of the fudamentalism and idealism is too whacky - but its refreshing to have a moral and conviction driven approach to politics

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Typical assumption from you that only the left know what they are voting for and that everything in the Labour manifesto is brilliant for the country and their policies will be universal vote-winners. But it isn't difficult for anybody capable of simply Googling stuff to find out what the main policy proposals are from the Conservative Party, but maybe you are just not interested. But in case you couldn't find it, here is a summary for you:-

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32302062

 

Anybody who wishes to delve into the manifesto of any party can do that easily enough and make up their own minds as to which party's policies are must attuned to their preferences. It is arrogant of you to pick the voters of a party which is hard to separate in terms of poll voting intention predictions from Labour and then to infer that they don't know what they are doing by voting Conservative.

 

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.

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Well yes pap, because the underlying conviction of right-of-centre politics is of small government and minimal state intervention. That's what people are arguing for - not intervening unless necessary.

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Can those who think that someone should have "gone after the bankers" care to explain what they mean by this? How would you have "made the bankers pay"? In your minds, who are "the bankers"?

 

Are you talking about punishment? Retribution? Reparations?

 

Genuine questions, btw. I'm absolutely not looking to score points with anyone, I just wonder what people think was the correct course of action.

 

Investment banks, the gamblers in sub-prime etc. hedge fund who need instability to function. These are people that caused the crash and the people who ultimately profited from it.

 

Poster on here who worked for bank of New York at the time said to me (2008) that if you can't get rich over the next 5 years you're in the wrong business.

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Well yes pap, because the underlying conviction of right-of-centre politics is of small government and minimal state intervention. That's what people are arguing for - not intervening unless necessary.

 

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?

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Well yes pap, because the underlying conviction of right-of-centre politics is of small government and minimal state intervention. That's what people are arguing for - not intervening unless necessary.

 

"Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed".

George Soros

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Well yes pap, because the underlying conviction of right-of-centre politics is of small government and minimal state intervention. That's what people are arguing for - not intervening unless necessary.

 

Does small government concoct laws to force housing associations, private non state organisations, to sell their houses at knock down prices? That smacks of big government and maximum state intervention.

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Nobody on here is arguing for zero government, VFFT.

 

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.

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Investment banks, the gamblers in sub-prime etc. hedge fund who need instability to function. These are people that caused the crash and the people who ultimately profited from it.

 

Poster on here who worked for bank of New York at the time said to me (2008) that if you can't get rich over the next 5 years you're in the wrong business.

A bank isn't a person, and gambling isn't a crime, so what do you prosecute?

 

Admittedly rate fixing is fraud, but I think there have been convictions for that.

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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

 

OK but Starbucks are not actually evading any tax due, so that's not HMRC's problem (and boy, do they have a lot of problems).

 

We can of course make new taxes, or change how the current taxes apply - that's easy to write, but clearly much harder to implement without a whole host of unintended consequences or loopholes (not to say we shouldn't try).

 

Also would be interesting to know what Starbucks pays in VAT, rates and employers' NI before we simply proclaim they pay no tax.

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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.

 

Really???? Do you not agree with any of the 32 listed below????

 

 

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.

 

Come on, the same can be said of the left on here. Anything but the tories?????

 

 

OK, here's the tory manifesto. Here is my take on it....

 

Taxation

 

  • Raise personal allowance to £12.5k and 40% tax threshold to £50k - AGREE (helps low and middle income families)
  • Increase inheritance tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1m - DISAGREE (leave as is, for now)
  • Legislate to keep people working 30 hours on minimum wage out of income tax - AGREE (helps incentivise people to work)
  • No rise in VAT or National Insurance contributions. - AGREE (Leave as is)

 

Transport

 

  • Deliver the biggest programme of investment in roads since the 1970s - DISAGREE
  • 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?)
  • Work to improve and simplify the Common Agriculture Policy - AGREE
  • Hold a free vote on repealing the Hunting Act - DISAGREE (more important things to worry about)
  • Provide near-universal superfast broadband by 2020 and secure the future of 3,000 rural Post Offices - AGREE (critical for business innovation)

 

EU

 

  • Hold an "in-out" referendum on Britain’s renegotiated EU membership by 2017 - AGREE
  • Protect the UK economy from further integration of the Eurozone. Expand the Single Market - AGREE
  • Scrap Human Rights Act and replace with a British Bill of Rights - DISAGREE (more important things to worry about)
  • Resist EU attempts to restrict legitimate financial services activities - AGREE (we are more exposed to FS)

 

Defence

 

  • Second new aircraft carrier will be brought into active service - DISAGREE (Can't afford it at the moment)
  • Replace Trident with four submarines to maintain continuous at sea nuclear deterrent - AGREE (keeps us at the top table)
  • Work for peace in Syria and Iraq and pursue a comprehensive strategy to defeat Islamic State - AGREE
  • Create new award for service in the reserve forces - DISAGREE

 

Education

 

  • Protect school funding per pupil - AGREE
  • Create at least a further 500 free schools in England by 2020 - DISAGREE
  • Zero tolerance for failure – immediate support to turn around failing or coasting schools - AGREE
  • 30 hours free childcare for working parents of 3&4-year-olds - AGREE

 

Welfare

 

  • Make £12bn welfare savings - DISAGREE (without knowing where it comes from)
  • Maintain the freeze in working-age benefits for two years - AGREE (especially with zero inflation at the moment)
  • 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)
  • 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)

 

Health

 

  • Increase NHS spending in England by at least £8bn above inflation over the next five years - AGREE
  • Seven-day access to GPs by 2020 & same day appointments for over-75s when needed - DISAGREE
  • Integrate health and social care - AGREE (If it reduces costs)
  • Improve access to mental health treatments - AGREE

 

 

So out of 32 policies, I agree with 18, diagree with 14. There must be a few on here that you don't deem to be ****????

Edited by Johnny Bognor
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A bank isn't a person, and gambling isn't a crime, so what do you prosecute?

 

Then why did the banks pay so many fines for mis-selling? The problem has been that the banks creation of toxic derivatives has been a massive exercise in wealth destruction. The banks got bailed out, the governments retrieved some of the bailout money through fines - but the people who caused the crash the CEO and board members largely escaped scot free.

 

The only people who have really lost out are the taxpayers and the people with pension funds, ie most of us. There should have been far more criminal prosecutions, and of board members, not just isolated traders. The problem was systemic, not isolated rogues on the dealing floor.

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OK but Starbucks are not actually evading any tax due, so that's not HMRC's problem (and boy, do they have a lot of problems).

 

We can of course make new taxes, or change how the current taxes apply - that's easy to write, but clearly much harder to implement without a whole host of unintended consequences or loopholes (not to say we shouldn't try).

 

Also would be interesting to know what Starbucks pays in VAT, rates and employers' NI before we simply proclaim they pay no tax.

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.

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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.

 

Every single Tory manifesto policy is sh*t according to you. Even if they espoused the same policy as Labour, it would still be sh*t, wouldn't it? Maybe it's not worth arguing for those policies against the likes of you, because you have already stated in your over-simplistic blinkered way that all of them are shi*t. As I already said, this is sheer arrogance from you attempting to pigeon-hole as idiots a section of voters at least as large as that which supports Labour.

 

If somebody attempted to speak in those terms about Labour supporters, you would be beside yourself in righteous indignation.

 

It seems to have escaped your mind that sometimes it is equally valid to vote against things that you disagree with as it is to vote for things that you do agree with.

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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.

 

Ok well that's that solved. 20% of what exactly?

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