On April 21 2010 01:57 UdderChaos wrote: Also they oppose commercial growing of GM crops, don't see why if they are tested as safe?
This pisses me off because GM is no more artificial than selective breeding, just more efficient. It's purely ignorant fearmongering about playing God that keeps them down. If it wasn't for high yield crops being created and dispersed hundreds of millions of people would have died. Edit: In fact, there really isn't much in the Lib Dems manifesto I like, I think mainly because they've never been in Government nor do any of them have any experience of Government. Their average voter has always been somewhat delusional and idealistic (for why else would you vote for a third party in a two party system) and their manifesto has always reflected that. Plans to appease everyone. Green energy, no war, good environment, happier people, puppies and rainbows. While I'm voting in a strongly Labour constituency in which the only credible challenge is Lib Dems I'm still tempted to throw my vote at the Conservatives. I'm rather apathetic about all three but I don't think the Lib Dems are ready for grown up politics yet.
Surely if you don't support any of the three major parties it would make more sence to throw your vote at the libdems, get some politcal reform out of them and thus have more viable parties in future elections, enabling you to vote for a party you actually like.
Except any vote is largely symbollic because one vote changes nothing. With that in mind I'd like to symbollically oppose Labour and the Lib Dems, despite the fact that in FPTP it changes nothing.
With that logic you way aswell not vote at all as even if you use your vote to symbollically oppose Labour and the Lib Dems, it a symbol no-one will notice or care about. In fact if you extend the argument further, PR wouldn't change a thing as the odds of your single vote making a difference are minimal. The only soloution would be a mass scale devoloution of power.
PR clearly would change a thing, even if you want to be smart about it lol.
It would change the makeup of my government, but not my influence over it.
This is not a practical question and is just an excuse for mathematicians to gloat. You have statistically insignificant power but it is more than none. Because when your power is multiplied by a statistically significant number of voters, it actually becomes a large number; but when 0 is multiplied by anything it becomes 0.
But an individual doesn't get a statistically significant number of votes and I have no influence over these other voters. If I choose to vote on a whim that doesn't mean they will. The "if everyone did that" fallacy doesn't apply.
Pretty much this. Just to clarify though, i certainly agree a democracy is better a dictatorship but that's no excuse to settle: i'd rather seek a system where individuals are significant. Not that i have any great ideas on what that may be, it's just always worth keeping in mind that in our current system a single vote doesn't matter.
I personally think if one single person fails to vote for that reason it's a sad situation for our country. Of course if 30m people fail to vote for that reason it's even worse. I'll just have to hope that there are enough people who get a kick out of putting their effort in to be part of the winning side
Onto other affairs though. The Tories have a list of influential businessmen who disapprove of the planned National Insurance rise. This could either be because it really is a shit idea, or because businesses like Conservatives. Is the rather optimistic 'efficiency savings' and standard Tory VAT increase any better of an idea?
On April 21 2010 08:09 sc4k wrote: Onto other affairs though. The Tories have a list of influential businessmen who disapprove of the planned National Insurance rise. This could either be because it really is a shit idea, or because businesses like Conservatives. Is the rather optimistic 'efficiency savings' and standard Tory VAT increase any better of an idea?
Sorry to just quote a youtube video but on the efficiency savings topic + Show Spoiler +
I vote for policies rather than people (candidates) primarily. I feel that the liberal democrat policies represent me the best. My vote will go to the liberal democrats.
I really advise any Brits to go to the bbc iPlayer website and watch the Daily Politics policy debates between each of the relevant cabinet and shadow cabinet members.
On April 21 2010 08:09 sc4k wrote: Onto other affairs though. The Tories have a list of influential businessmen who disapprove of the planned National Insurance rise. This could either be because it really is a shit idea, or because businesses like Conservatives. Is the rather optimistic 'efficiency savings' and standard Tory VAT increase any better of an idea?
Well you have to start by understanding that either option is only a very small start in reducing our budget deficit. I find both the Conservatives and Labour very annoying on this issue. They won't say what they're going to do since a) they probably haven't decided yet b) it would be election suicide. Even the Lib Dems aren't telling the truth. Their manifesto is costed assuming you don't want to make any cuts. Even if they plan to increase the no tax bracket to £10,000 this year.... are they going to cut it again next year? I don't think they would actually do it even if there was a ridiculous upset and they got into power. + Show Spoiler [more on the Lib Dem tax break] +
By the way on the issue of the tax bracket; it doesn't help someone earning £6,000 at all whilst someone earning £99,000 would get a £700 tax break. I don't think it really makes much sense.
At some point there has to be cuts or tax increase, you can't get away from that. The reality is the sooner you do it the better.
However, I think it's clear that cuts are better than a NI increase. NI is a tax on jobs, you can't escape that. It will just increase household debt which as someone pointed out eventually leads to public debt anyway. Cutting spending is a much better way of reducing the deficit than increasing taxes.
When you get to taxes a VAT increase is really the most fair. Those who spend more pay more so it fairly taxes the rich more. And of course there is no VAT on food or baby clothes and some other important stuff. An income tax increase would also be reasonably fair too. The Lib Dem idea of joining capital gains tax with income tax (so top earners pay 50% on capital gains) isn't a bad idea in theory but I think most agree 50% is too high. Capital gains tax is 18% at the moment, putting it up to 30% might be more sensible.
This is what frustrates me the most about Brown. The fact that he just continually lies so much. In the debate he tries to push Cameron on his "promise" to protect the police funding. Gordon can't protect the police, no-one can. His NI increase would take money away from the police anyway. He wouldn't call it a cut but it's essentially the same thing.
TL;DR Cuts are better than a NI increase... but ultimately whoever gets in has to do a lot more. They WILL have to put up some form of tax and cut spending.
Yes it seems to me that a VAT increase makes more sense. Not sure why Labour is so reluctant to do it.
Also the Lib Dems have listed one of their ways of paying for the £10,000 cut as being stopping income tax avoidance. As far as I have been instructed, this is even less likely than cutting waste. It's something that people have been trying for freakin' ages. It's just really really hard to do.
On April 21 2010 08:55 sc4k wrote: Yes it seems to me that a VAT increase makes more sense. Not sure why Labour is so reluctant to do it.
Also the Lib Dems have listed one of their ways of paying for the £10,000 cut as being stopping income tax avoidance. As far as I have been instructed, this is even less likely than cutting waste. It's something that people have been trying for freakin' ages. It's just really really hard to do.
That's the capital gains tax increase I mentioned. To avoid more income tax you can take your wages in company shares, "gifts" and other things classed as "capital gains". Up to £10,000 of that is tax free and then levied at 18%. The lib dems would fix it at your tax rate, which could be the 50% top rate of tax.
Labour isn't reluctant to do a VAT increase they're just pretending they don't need to. However, I can almost guarantee you that they will since they'll try extremely hard not to directly cut anything.
He shouldn't even bother coming to the lib dem heartland and attempting to gain votes, it just isnt worth it. Also kinda annoyed by the fact the conservatives are pushing themselves as the only party for real change so much even though the lib dems have a far more "change filled" manifesto, though that is politics!
It will be interesting to see how Clegg does in the next debate(s)?
The origins of Cleggmania can be traced to last week's televised debate -- a first in Great Britain -- in which Clegg was widely considered to have stolen the show from the leaders of Britain's two largest political parties: current Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron. The headline the next day in the London Times read "Clegg comes of age." A poll taken after the debate led the Guardian to declare that "Clegg is now in contention as potential PM."
To top it off, the latest YouGov poll shows the Liberal Democrats to now be in the lead with 34 percent of the vote. The Conservative Party came in second with 31 percent. A week ago the Liberal Dems were hovering around 16 percent. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish referred to the poll result as "the earthquake in Britain." John Curtice of the Independent has called the Liberal Dems' surge "the biggest shock to the electoral landscape in years."
On April 22 2010 03:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Double post but no reaction David Cameron hit with an egg?
Wow some idiot throws an egg, not really a story.
On April 22 2010 04:58 bmml wrote: He shouldn't even bother coming to the lib dem heartland and attempting to gain votes, it just isnt worth it. Also kinda annoyed by the fact the conservatives are pushing themselves as the only party for real change so much even though the lib dems have a far more "change filled" manifesto, though that is politics!
I agree all this talk of change is very annoying but the Liberals are no exception. They all play the PR game just at the moment Clegg is playing it the best.
I hope you're not fooled by the facebook groups and all the other nonsense.
At some point there has to be cuts or tax increase, you can't get away from that. The reality is the sooner you do it the better.
It is actually far from obvious (even within the mainstream economic paradigm which I generally reject but which I will assume for the purposes of addressing your point) that "the sooner you do it the better". Even many mainstream economists acknowledge that attempting to reduce a deficit too early undermines economic recovery and puts upward pressure on the deficit.
As I pointed out earlier, there is a level of deficit hysteria in Britain at present which is distracting from far more important issues such as productive activity in the economy and employment generation. Maintaining aggregate demand and stimulating productive activity will bring the deficit down naturally by well-understood economic mechanisms which have functioned time and again in the past.
On April 22 2010 03:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Double post but no reaction David Cameron hit with an egg?
Wow some idiot throws an egg, not really a story.
On April 22 2010 04:58 bmml wrote: He shouldn't even bother coming to the lib dem heartland and attempting to gain votes, it just isnt worth it. Also kinda annoyed by the fact the conservatives are pushing themselves as the only party for real change so much even though the lib dems have a far more "change filled" manifesto, though that is politics!
I agree all this talk of change is very annoying but the Liberals are no exception. They all play the PR game just at the moment Clegg is playing it the best.
I hope you're not fooled by the facebook groups and all the other nonsense.
Tax reform, parliamentary reform and hell they have one of Britains best economists as prospective chancellor, whats not to like!
Plus "fooled" is a bit of an overstatement the facebook groups debates etc are all the natural progression of British politics (which has been stuck in a time warp since 1997) allbeit smoke and mirrors.
On April 22 2010 05:06 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: It will be interesting to see how Clegg does in the next debate(s)? + Show Spoiler +
The origins of Cleggmania can be traced to last week's televised debate -- a first in Great Britain -- in which Clegg was widely considered to have stolen the show from the leaders of Britain's two largest political parties: current Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron. The headline the next day in the London Times read "Clegg comes of age." A poll taken after the debate led the Guardian to declare that "Clegg is now in contention as potential PM."
To top it off, the latest YouGov poll shows the Liberal Democrats to now be in the lead with 34 percent of the vote. The Conservative Party came in second with 31 percent. A week ago the Liberal Dems were hovering around 16 percent. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish referred to the poll result as "the earthquake in Britain." John Curtice of the Independent has called the Liberal Dems' surge "the biggest shock to the electoral landscape in years."
The next debate is on SkyNews (a channel relatively unwatched by the masses and only avaliable on digital tv) and will (I believe) probably only manage about 5 million views, half the previous. It is also focused on economics which I would say is the Lib Dems strong points if Clegg can just repeat the things talked about by Vince Cable in the chancellors debate a few weeks ago (which Cable was said to have "won" I'd imagine he'd "win" again, though Cameron/Brown will probably be far more critical of the Clegg in the next debate since they have seen the power hes supposedly gained from playing the "man on the outside" in the last one.
EPT
