[Closed] Election Campaign

I think the tory attacks might help milliband in some ways

look hes really boring having a cup of tea in his kitchen!
well i do that too, it may be boring but its what people do

and the backstabbing comments, in regard to his brother, just make him look a bit ruthless and ambitious which isnt necessarily a bad trait in a future pm

and trying to rake muck on his past girlfriends, the torygraph are still banging on about him dating stephanie flanders* on the front page today

its helping to transform him from the boring nerd, wallace charicature to a lot more of an alpha male

and its making the tories look bitchy and with nothing positive to offer

*shes quite sexy, imho, hes punching above his weight there!

I think the tory insults have already helped him immensely. He comes across as quite an affable, harmless bloke, so the attacks just make the tories look like a bunch of schoolyard bullies which is hardly a good thing for them. And everyone likes seeing someone stand up to bullies, which I think he does quite well in the face of the tory insults so it plays very well for him.

The Tories are definitely panicking! You can tell by the way they've radically changed their approach to Millibean in the last week, from 'ha, ha! Look at the dweeb! Isn't he useless! Ha, ha, haaaaaa! Just look at him', to suddenly him being the most dangerous man in Britain. Scrapping Trident etc

Well... which is it then? Because the 2 positions are inherently contradictory

And thankfully I think most people are taking a very negative view of the sheer nastiness of the Lynton Crosby Tory tactics. And they're definitely on the back foot now he's forced them to effectively defend the (indefensible in most peoples eyes) tax arrangements of non-doms. Hence them chucking the Trident thing in in a transparently obvious, blind panic to change the subject. It didn't work!

Millibeans comeback was clever though... "while I have the greatest respect for Michael Fallon, he has on this occasion demeaned his office...." And so refusing to get drawn into personal insults. And looking a lot more statesmanlike as a result.

Another week of polls like this, and the Tory's really are going to go into full on nasty, attack dog mode. With the aid of their friends in the right wing press. Its all they know. Its their default. But I think the electorate looks like its had enough of that already. But they simply can't help themselves. Its just what they do...

I reckon Crosby has fundamentally misunderstood the way the public thinks in this country. His macho-bully tactics may work in a macho alpha male country like Australia or the US, but the UK is much more sympathetic to 'underdogs' and likes someone who stands up to bullies, and miliband plays this role very well.

Interesting points:

Focus largely on domestic policies in complete contrast to US elections
Lab and Tories starting this week by focusing on their perceived weak spots
Main parties fear of standing up for what they have done or believe in
The pull of fluff as a panacea to solve our problems
The permutations and likely coalitions between parties that REALLY dislike each other, hence manifestos are little more that the opening bid in the forthcoming negotiations. Forget saying how we are going to represent the voters' best interests
It won't make a scrap of difference even if we get the unholy alliance. But that will be funny watching Nicola implement more Tory ( 😉 )policies north of the wall!!

hence manifestos are little more that the opening bid in the forthcoming negotiations.

Absolutely bang on! Its the elephant in the room. That that dare not speak its name. Whatever government we end up with will be a coalition of some flavour or other. Nobody will get a majority. And they all know it!

But none of them can come out and actually acknowledge that fact. Which makes the whole thing a bit of a farce really. The manifesto's aren't actually manifestos at all. They're a wish list of things they'll be haggling for with potential junior partners. Or in the case of the SNP, stuff they'll be demanding as the price of cooperation. I'd imagine if the lib dems are potentially entering a coalition, they'll be driving a lot harder bargain this time around!

Cue the BS bargaining over Trident versus another independence vote!!!

You can view it as either contempt for the voters, political pragmatism or the voters' fault.

Either way, it's most likely to messy with no real LT effect on what issues need to be addressed.

Do we need another thread ?

I am sceptical of opinion polls, proved to be very inaccurate in Scotland for the referendum.

Tories are convinced Milliband is big Labour weakness together with their tax and spend history. Labour think the NHS is a major advantage from them. UKIP vote seems to be on a slide, I wonder if they will remain a by-election and EU parliament party. SNP wins will favour the Tories. Apart from that I haven't seen much.

As per some commentators I think there is a very high chance of a dysfunctional coalition and another election in 18-24 months

Do we need another thread ?

Don't see why not. The others have descended into the predictable point scoring on policy issues. This is more about how the campaign is going and how it's being fought, which is more interesting than the policies as they're all pretty much the same.

Interesting how Labour have turned the tables somewhat and are now calling the tories the party of un-funded spending promises. Seems like a trap the tories have walked into, hence my comments about labour being one step ahead.

I just get fed up of all the campaign being dominated by the NHS, and 'hard working families'. There is more to the UK than the NHS. How about some coherent policies on Energy, Science, Agriculture, Transport, Defence, (rather than simply Trident) etc.

Polls have not changed

Voters already bored?

Most parties regressed IMO

Only good things is that a lot of fluff has been exposed. The bad thing, people don't care!!!

Looking like either Labour + SNP or Conservative + Lib Dem (+ UKIP?).

I can't see any party wanting to be the minority partner in a coalition, so minority government with an alliance for the Queen's Speech, followed by lots of horsetrading?

Government collapses after 12 to 18 months and we get to do all this again?

the lib dems knew once the present coalition went down theyd be toast and clegg would be out, so the lib dems, and the torys made it work, for similar reasons- cameron's got several waiting in the wings to oust him

never underestimate how determined the leadership will be to cling on to power and keep a coalition running

never underestimate who determined the leadership will be to clong on to power

It'll be very interesting if the tories are the largest party (which is a big if) but can't put a majority together. Given Cameron's statement about not standing again, I reckon he's already resigned to his fate and doesn't particularly want to win given the ball-ache of trying to scrape enough parliamentary votes to be a minority govt. This comes across in the campaign I think as he doesn't look very motivated and outside of the hysterical attacks on Miliband the tories as a whole have been very quiet.

Whoever is in charge of the Tory campaign needs to be sacked if they want to win. Their messages so far seem to be:

1. We're going to keep cutting because we need to reduce the deficit.
2. We're going to make tax cuts too, plus spend more on health
3. You can trust us because we're done a good job so far
4. Attack Ed personally

1 & 2 appear contradictory, 3 is rubbished by the evidence, and 4 makes them look weak and petty. They also don't have any policies of any note.

Just watching bbc news at 1. Milliband shaking hands in factory(?) first guy in line quite obviously doesn't want to be there.

Hasn't the whole campaign been quiet and frankly dull?

Outside the party leaders we have hardly heard from anyone. Hardly any new initiatives. The media has to make up differences between the parties that (fluff parties aside) do not exist.

What has happened to the cabinet and shadow cabinets. Ok many if the Scottish ones are scared about their seats, but even so.....

A very bland election so far IMO

What has happened to the cabinet and shadow cabinets.

True, outside of Cameron/Osborne/Miliband/Balls they've all been conspicuously absent apart from Fallon's hysterical intervention. Probably Brown's fault for bigot-gate as they're not doing the traditional constituency photo calls. They're probably all too busy setting up phone lines and war-rooms for the looming leadership elections.

True, outside of Cameron/Osborne/Miliband/Balls they've all been conspicuously absent apart from Fallon's hysterical intervention. Probably Brown's fault for bigot-gate as they're not doing the traditional constituency photo calls. They're probably all too busy setting up phone lines and war-rooms for the looming leadership elections.

I think the Tories will be pretty happy with that as their view is that Milliband's and Balls's public perception is Labour's greatest weakness - whether they are right, we will found out in due course.

I know the electorate is stupid

Of course, anyone who doesn't agree with you is!

Where'd I say that then? I was referring to the tendency of the electorate in general to vote for people they know nothing about or voting on misinformation and ignorance of the issues. I wasn't commenting on their preference. For instance, in my workplace of otherwise educated intelligent people, I've come across a fair few who say they're going to vote for a particular party because they are going to win, and they want to be on the winning side!

I am sceptical of opinion polls, proved to be very inaccurate in Scotland for the referendum

[img] [/img]

Not much has happened IMHO the most interesting thing is the Tory change of tact on ed from demonising him and what happens with the UKIP vote which seems to be waning and how few Lib dems survive

No overall majority if a forgone conclusion and I think the Lib dems and SNP are more likely to favour Labour than Tory.
I dont think it will last long as we may get PR out of all this
We probably need to get used to hung parliaments and this may save the union/ silence the independents.

When a poll puts the Tories on 39% six points ahead of Labour, an overall majority is still a distinct possibility, albeit not the most likely outcome.

Not sure why people put so much trust in politicians as they are all in for milking the system for their own "careers".

How many of them have been made redundant apart from being fired for involving in some scandals? Hardly any or not at all.

At the end of the day there is no such thing as fair coz they are all rubbish but people tolerate them to some extend.

Sod them all. I vote not because I have faith in them but because I need to ensure they work hard for their money ...

That is a curious poll. Possibly a result of the UKIP vote receding as people come to their senses but I'm not sure that'll have much effect on the end result.

dazh - Member

That is a curious poll. Possibly a result of the UKIP vote receding as people come to their senses but I'm not sure that'll have much effect on the end result.

Does it matter or you have convinced yourself or trying hard to convinced yourself?

id say that poll could well be accurate, crosby wouldnt have pent millions? of pounds of tory donnor money if his tactics werent legitimate

JY, we had those Referendum polls which showed the Yes had closed right up to tie

Today's GE poll from Guardian/ICM has Tories far ahead (6% to 7% I think) and I think these are just as false as the ones giving Labour a decent lead.

@dazh - understood, it just takes more time to follow multiple threads. On your question I think the new fixed term parliaments mean we are in campaign mode for 6 months which is not positive. It all gets very dull.

I was referring to the tendency of the electorate in general to vote for people they know nothing about or voting on misinformation and ignorance of the issues.

Personally I've always trusted ICM polls more than YouGov. Not really sure why but my feel is that YouGov tend to over estimate the young leftwing vote (e.g. lib dems, SNP).

Interesting here is the result from 14-15 April 2010 (ICM for Sunday Telegraph)

Labour - 29%
Tory - 34%
Lib Dem - 27%
Other - 10%

Looking in wikipedia for the 2010 election all the polls over estimated the lib dem vote compared to reality, so it'll be interesting to see if the same happens with UKIP, Greens and SNP this time. My gut is they will as once in the voting booth people will tend to return to put the x by one of the major 2.

Today's GE poll from Guardian/ICM has Tories far ahead (6% to 7% I think) and I think these are just as false as the ones giving Labour a decent lead.

I'd agree. I guess with so many UKIP/greens floating about and the fact they're not evenly spread the pollsters have trouble finding a truly representative sample.

Does it matter or you have convinced yourself or trying hard to convinced yourself?

Well on the surface it looks like the tories are benefitting at the cost of UKIP, and this won't affect the numbers much in terms of forming a minority govt. If the tories are going to be able to form a government they've got to take seats off labour. There's not much evidence that's going to happen.

dazh - Member

Well on the surface it looks like the tories are benefitting at the cost of UKIP, and this won't affect the numbers much in terms of forming a minority govt. If the tories are going to be able to form a government they've got to take seats off labour. There's not much evidence that's going to happen.

My view is that there will be (hopefully) a period of fragmented govt because they are all too detached from reality. There is Not one person that has the PM "look".

Yeah, as a rough guess I'd say the UKIP voters will bottle it and vote back to Tory.

The Green voters migh have a bit more baclbone about themselves and stick with principles.

If the tories are going to be able to form a government they've got to take seats off labour.

I wonder if it'll be the UKIPers who'll do the work for Cons on this one and take voes off Lab, rather than directly swapping from Lab to Con?

That's distinctly possible. There's a guy I know in my office who says he's voting UKIP and he's a classic northern white working class lifelong labour voter, and he's not the only one. It's funny/tragic that the result could come down to which side has the most stupid reactionary white people who vote for UKIP instead of their normal parties.

have to agree with breatheasy on that one, I think UKIP peaked to soon and the greens and snp in particular have come into it long enough to carry on their momentum which will affect the tories and labour respectively

the whole 'europes about to collapse' crisis has been going on so long now that the kippers main focus has got tired

There's a guy I know in my office who says he's voting UKIP and he's a classic northern white working class lifelong labour voter,

Worked on elections for a good few years in a previous job. A lot of the Lab voters wouldn't ever consider voting Conservative but certainly don't have what I would describe as sharing the Labour 'values' - UKIP is almost a viable alternative for them. Don't think it'll affect this years vote but if they do stick around and don't implode then I can see some potential for damaging the Labour heartlands next time.

Not voting Labour btw, but that video they put up this morning of Osborne managing 18 times not to answer Andrew Marr as to where he will get 6 billion for nhs from is pretty funny. 😀

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-refuses-answer-nhs-5507896

its bizare that hes fallen into the exact same trap they seem to setup for labour

id say that the cons have a much more organised social media campaign; facebook etc

Conservatives were spending £100k [i]a month[/i] on facebook long before the elction campaign started proper. 😯
I womder what the bill is now?

, we had those Referendum polls which showed the Yes had closed right up to tie

On the broad point I think the poll of polls will always broadly be accurate. and whilst they wont be 100% accurate they will be broadly accurate and they did get the Scottish referendum vote correct.

The weekly variations are sampling errors well within accepted norms but the overall broad trend will hold true.

Conservatives were spending £100k a month on facebook long before the elction campaign started proper.

The comments on our [url=

Tory candidate's page[/url] show that this isn't always effective; lots of negative comments.

Well I put a picture of the poll of polls

jambalaya - Member

Do we need another thread ?

I am sceptical of opinion polls, proved to be very inaccurate in Scotland for the referendum.

Tories are convinced Milliband is big Labour weakness together with their tax and spend history.

That's why it's important to remind everyone that the highest UK tax burden in history was under the Tories/Thatcher, and that George Osborne promptly put up VAT to the highest level ever as soon as he became Chancellor. And also to remind them that George Osborne fully supported Labour's spending plans in 2007 when he was Shadow Chancellor.

And why it's important to have threads like this.

But it was specific polls that got all the media attention. The ones that suggested it was close/tied.

Whilst I would love to let you move the goal posts and discuss this with you instead of what you actually said the fact remains that they called the result accurately and what you said was inaccurate.

I am sceptical of opinion polls, proved to be very inaccurate in Scotland for the referendum.

Ok I'm doubly confused now. So not only are the labour party the economically responsible balancing the books austerity party, but the tories according Cameron are now the 'party of working people'. What next? No doubt the libdems will announce themselves as the 'Pride of Eng-er-lan, send the b*ggers back' party.

[quote=dazh said]Ok I'm doubly confused now. So not only are the labour party the economically responsible balancing the books austerity party, but the tories according Cameron are now the 'party of working people'. What next? No doubt the libdems will announce themselves as the 'Pride of Eng-er-lan, send the b*ggers back' party.

Indeed, looks like you'll be voting for continued austerity daz.

But the medicine will have more sugar under labour

Was an interesting piece on the radio about this

The argument was they had both forgotten to appeal to the middle ground floating voters and now they were panicking and appealing to them to the degree they have flipped sides

Shows how little difference there is between them and it is pretty strange to see

there is almost nothing [ no lie] a political party wont say in the run up to an election to harvest votes

The three manifestos announced so far:

Labour manifesto: http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto
Green manifesto: https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto.aspx
Conservative manifesto: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html

[quote=miketually said]The three manifestos announced so far:
Labour manifesto: http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto
Green manifesto: https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto.aspx
Conservative manifesto: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html

😆

Here you go JY, I am sure you do remember this really

[url= http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/09/06/latest-scottish-referendum-poll-yes-lead/ ]Yes leads by 2%[/url]

JY my view is that elections in the past 20 years are won by the party in the centre, from time to time the Tories drift off right and Labour go left and usually that's where they come unstuck. Labour have not been able to be radical as they cannot afford to be financially and from a credibility standpoint, the non-dom pledge even they admitted would probably cost money. Tory announcements have been much more broadly appealing. their standpoint has long been you cannot afford a welfare state if the economy is broken.

Perhaps you have forgotten my opening line on this thread in reply to your claim

They all [ bar one] Had no winning and no won

🙄
It seems that you cannot accept that one "wrong" poll in hundreds does not make this statement true

proved to be very inaccurate in Scotland for the referendum

From your link

The latest survey, conducted for The Sunday Times with less than two weeks to go until voting day, has YES at 51% and NO at 49% – [b]the first lead for the independence camp registered by YouGov, or any polling company, since regular polling on September 18th’s referendum began.[/b]

The numbers represent a four-point increase for YES support since YouGov’s last Scottish independence poll conducted a week ago (August 28-September 1). Opposition to independence has fallen from 53% to 49%.

[b]The last poll, fielded after the second televised independence debate (which Alex Salmond was widely regarded as having won)[/b], was the first to represent a real possibility for a ‘Yes’ win, with only a six point gap between the sides.

[b]The percentages reported exclude those who wouldn’t vote and don’t know. With those groups included ‘Yes’ are on 47% and ‘No’ are on 45%[/b].

Its not even a majority when you include all surveys and they were pretty much spot on for the Yes vote 😉

[s]If you cannot see this, and it appears you cannot, will you please just stop repeating yourself and then i can stop repeating myself[/s]
I am not replying to your inevitable denial/refusal to accept reality , as its clear facts dont matter to you

 

😳 Oops, good job I'm not a Green candidate or anything... Too late for a sneaky edit, too. 😳

The three manifestos announced so far:

* Labour manifesto: http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto
* Green manifesto: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html
* Conservative manifesto: https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto.aspx

Has anyone had any canvassers?

I have had no one at the door, no leaflets, not billboards - just a UKIP bloke at the station last week (but with not enough time for some fun!). Is there really an election going on?

Weve had leaflets from everyone, bar the greens. And labour canvasser, also quite a few labour placards and stickers up around here

Labour defo seem to have more boots on the ground and I imagine it'll swing back to them from the current Tory, who only just got it last time

Conversely my fb account gets loads of Torry advertising posts

So there seems to be a difference between the canvassing tactics

We've had a leaflet from the greens and some fantastically overwrought "newsletters" from the red and blue corners.

SNP canvassed my street last night, chap was quite pleasant and left straight away when I said a firm 'No thanks', didn't even bother trying to give me a leaflet.

Looking at the sorry state of their cars I'd say canvassing for the SNP doesn't pay well (at all?!).

SNP got less than 12% of the vote (came in 4th) in the constituency last time, so would need a large swing to take it. And the constituency is part of an area that voted 60% against independence, so an SNP win would be a big deal. Can't see it myself.

All SNP canvassers are volunteers.

Has anyone had any canvassers?

There are areas of the town where canvassers from all parties are active, but they're all pretty short on members/volunteers so they're going to struggle to get around everyone. If you live in a safe council ward and/or in a safe parliamentary seat, it's very unlikely that anyone will knock on your door or hand-deliver a leaflet. It's all about focused effort.

Lots of talk of "The Good Life" today. This from the Guardian made me laugh.

[img] [/img]

But the medicine will have more sugar under labour

It's not medicine, if anything it's poison. Which is why the Tories eased off the so-called medicine just in time for things to look a tad more positive as the country prepares to go to the polls. If the medicine was doing any good then you would expect them to double the dose in the run up to a general election.

Previous Labour governments weren't in the least bothered about the UK having deficits just like the previous Tory governments weren't - both Thatcher and John Major ran substantial deficits.

Then Cameron and Osborne come along and use the deficit as a pretext to justify ideologically motivate cuts. The Labour Party, highjacked by self-serving right-wing careerists and too pathetic and spineless to challenge them, and not wanting to upset the Daily Mail, signs up to the policy and makes the same commitment to clear the deficit through cuts. Only they claim they will be better at implementing right-wing policies than the Conservatives. Oh and "fairer" of course, they will be fairer...........[i]"Vote for us we're just like the Tories but fairer".[/i] FFS

ideologically motivated cuts

As opposed of course to the opposing policies which saw an ideologically motivated expansion of the state sector?

Or is it only 'ideology' when the Tories do it?

Of course not Z-11 that's ridiculous. And I certainly have an ideological commitment to the expansion of the state sector. There is nothing wrong with being ideologically motivated.

Today's Tory Party like their neoconservative mates across the Atlantic have a strong ideological commitment to less social provisions and social ownership. However they come out with some bollocks about the deficit and how it must be cleared to justified their neoconservative agenda (while completely ignoring the fact that all previous Tory governments for the last 40 years had deficits).

Any spending cuts by Cameron/Osborne are ideologically motivated and have **** all to do with the deficit, a deficit can be cleared without cuts. It is perfectly correct to point out that Tory spending cuts are ideologically motivated.

ernie_lynch - Member
There is nothing wrong with being ideologically motivated.

Which is interesting given...

Any spending cuts by Cameron/Osborne are ideologically motivated

They will be relieved!!!

teamhurtmore - Member

ernie_lynch - Member
There is nothing wrong with being ideologically motivated.

Which is interesting given...

Any spending cuts by Cameron/Osborne are ideologically motivated

They will be relieved!!!

What appears to be the problem THM......you seem to be struggling ?

Nowt Ernie, it's all very amusing to read. Light relief too when you take jnto account how crap the real debate has been. Cheers!

You're obviously easily amused then. Presumably this is the first time that you have heard the claim that Tory spending cuts are ideologically motivated.

It's a widely made charge by opponents of the Conservative Party and it's strange that you should apparently have been oblivious of it. I would have expected that someone who purports to read the FT would have been better informed.

Indeed the FT in its Budget 2015 report last month wrote the following :

[b][i]
Senior Liberal Democrats attacked the Conservatives on Wednesday over their plans for austerity in the next parliament, accusing them of making ideologically motivated cuts that would reduce spending to its lowest point in 50 years. [/i][/b]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/36d84e54-cd86-11e4-9144-00144feab7de.html#axzz3XKKWaAxF

Presumably despite being allegedly an avid reader of the FT you didn't read their budget reports. Had you done so it might have bought you some "light relief" when you take into account how crap the real debate about the budget in the FT must have been for you.

ernie_lynch - Member
You're obviously easily amused then.

Yes, it pays to be at times like these, correct

Presumably

Presumptions can be very dangerous especially twice in a single post 😉

this is the first time that you have heard the claim that Tory spending cuts are ideologically motivated.

On the contrary, I am regularly misinformed on here (notes spending plans of all major parties). More discerning journals, fortunately, note and lament.the lack of ideology, vision and strategy displayed by our political leaders

and it's strange that you should apparently have been oblivious of it.

That would be strange, I agree.

I would have expected that someone who purports to read the FT

The what?

would have been better informed.

I rely on a STW grocer to do that for me. Is the advice not up to scratch? Must be a bad apple day!!! 😉

But when all is said and done, I can always fall back on the knowledge that

ernie_lynch - Member
There is nothing wrong with being ideologically motivated

😀 😀

Have a nice day. Mines a pippin (not to be confused with a Victoria)

Surely Ernie's point is that being honest about your idealistic motivation is better than dressing up as guff about the country being skint/broken/whatever. Thm you remind us so often that austerity is yet to start, yet we have had so many changes made apparently in the name of austerity.
If your ideals are to dismantle the state then why not just be honest about it?
If your ideals are to renationalise public services in which there is no realistic 'choice' eg the railways and health system then why not be honest about that too?
Instead we get oblique jokes that you need to have read the last week's argu-threads on here in order to begin to understand. :/

Btw choose an apple with a higher percentage or polyphenols thm, science suggests you might be less of a burden on the state in later years.

julianwilson - Member
Surely Ernie's point is that being honest about your idealistic motivation is better than dressing up as guff about the country being skint/broken/whatever.

True

Thm you remind us so often that austerity is yet to start,

More that there is much more to come - see OBR for details

yet we have had so many changes made apparently in the nameof austerity.

Indeed, we have had lots of sloppy terminology - progressive, currency = assets etc

If your ideals are to dismantle the state then why not just be honest about it?

Are you talking about a party that maintains gov spending within historic boundaries and ring fences major parts of it?

Instead we get oblique jokes that you need to have read the last week's argu-threads on here in order to begin to understand. :/

Banter!!!

But I took Ernie's suggestion and had a look at the FT and their political columnist

Voters will enter the polling booth with a sketchy idea of the economic choices on offer. The Tories’ commitment to overall budget balance, Labour’s preference for capital spending — these and other distinctions are too opaque to move the average Briton, who knows that policies are changeable anyway. Personality, by contrast, is relatively constant. As their pencils hover over the ballot, people will have a gut impression of the characters asking for the right to rule them, and decide accordingly. Voters know that superficialities are what really run deep.

Thank goodness for quality journalism!

So the deficit isn't a problem, the Tories are using it as a pretext for ideologically driven reduction of the state and Labour are being bullied by the right-wing press into making cuts just to make themselves look "credible".

I think that's right isn't it ?

so...
tories have a plan to do something (but probably won't)
labour can only say that anything the tories say isn't costed/funded
libdems have a contingency plan which is to have a contingency plan and learned that Gordon Brown ran an economy by using the word "prudent", so they borrowed that word too.
and ukip have serious drivel this time rather than just drivel

that's all I've managed to ascertain from BBC breakfast news.

Budget cuts where required for two reasons, spending was excessive and income (taxes etc) where falling due to the recession. Even with Tory spending cuts our deficit is £90bn per annum, with a Labour government it would have been 50% larger, possibly more. The French economy has continued shrinking as Hollande opted for spending instead of reforms and his tax rises backfired resulting in lower levels of income for the state.

Spending cuts were essential and any ideology largely irrelevant.

What I want to know is.... has Junky hi-jacked THM account?

Just look at your reply to Ernie about an hour ago....

ernie says this

THM says that

Ernie says you said that but what about these

THM says these? Look at those

.....

Poor .... go away and have a little think... 🙂

Good article in the i this morn.... about agruing over the scraps and missing the bigger issues.

Labour has been talking about raising an extra £7.5bn from tightening tax-avoidance and evasion, and from ending non-dom status. Even if it managed to do so, that would be only 1 per cent of its spending, or 10 per cent of the deficit. It would be like someone on average earnings, which after tax are around £21,000 a year, suddenly getting a windfall of an extra £210.

The Tories are equally guilty. They have a plan to raise £1bn from cuts in pension tax relief on the highest earners to fund the removal of family homes up to £1m from inheritance tax. This is supposedly revenue neutral, though no one knows whether this would be the case. But to have as a flagship policy something that is so tiny in the context of the economy as a whole is bizarre.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/hamish-mcrae/a-billion-here-a-billion-there--and-not-a-word-of-it-matters-10177097.html

Although this is second time McRae has raised the point.... he still hasn't educated us on the larger/real issues that he thinks we should be discussing.

Anyone here like to do that ?

spending was excessive

[b]% of GDP spent on public goods[/b] (from p49 of [url= https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/manifesto/Green_Party_2015_General_Election_Manifesto.pdf ]Green manifesto[/url])
[list][*]Denmark - 58%[/*]
[*]France - 56%[/*]
[*]Belgium - 53%[/*]
[*]UK 2010 - 47%[/*]
[*][i]Uk (Green Party plan) - 45%[/i][/*]
[*]Germany - 45%[/*]
[*]Spain - 42%[/*]
[*]United States - 41%[/*]
[*][i]UK 2015 (planned) - 39%[/i][/*]
[*][i]UK 2020 (planned) - 26%[/i][/*][/list]

Let's be honest the whole campaign is sh*t with all parties simply fiddling around the edges, because much as we moan about the Greeks, the UK population are no better at excepting bad news. The problem is that if no action is taken then eventually rather than the UK sorting it's own problems, external forces will act to sort it out instead and probably not for the better.

Article on Gilt sales here:

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11525768/Gilts-strike-as-foreigners-shun-UK-on-gridlock-fears.html ]Gilt sales[/url]

UK 2020 (planned) - 26%

36% actually and assumes spending savings are restricted to managed expenditure budgets.

Excess leverage

Weak productivity

Welcome back supply-side economics - only problems is that they don't give quick results.

Ok for you Ro5ey? (But I take the point 😉 just a rare error!)