U.K. Politics: Labour win two more by-elections from the Conservative Party

[hun]

Why does nobody like Green Party?

[Brad]

Why does nobody like Green Party?

Their membership is at an all-time high and they're predicted to do better than they ever have before in this upcoming election (personally, I think they'll do much better than expected).

They have growing support, but the media are always focused on the main three and the rise of UKIP.

[ShayLaB]

I will vote Conservative because I don't want Labour spending us to poverty

Considering the rise in poverty since the last election, this is laughable.

...except you know rightly that I meant the budget deficit and national debt and not personal finance. The big picture that impacts the finances, tax and spending of the nation. At least there appears to be a plan to get it under control and undo the damage.

The budget deficit is halved in the last five years and the OBR is projecting a surplus within a couple of years. At that point we can begin paying down the national debt.

OBR:




The Labour party were in government between1997 and 2010...notice anything about government spending in that time?

[ShayLaB]

Why does nobody like Green Party?

Their membership is at an all-time high and they're predicted to do better than they ever have before in this upcoming election (personally, I think they'll do much better than expected).

They have growing support, but the media are always focused on the main three and the rise of UKIP.

Their support is broad but shallow...not enough in individual constituencies to gain seats in a first-past-the-post electoral system.

[Brad]

Wonderful figures. Go show them to the people relying on food banks.

FTR, I don't support Labour.

[SeeForever]

I've never voted Labour and still won't with that awful leader, as said before they picked the wrong brother, like him or loath him Tony Blair was popular with a lot of the people but they have failed to pick a leader who can connect with the people since then IMO

Overall I can't stand politics all they do is say they'll do this and that to get your vote then they don't do it and hope you'll forget about it, and it's laughable when they ask a politician a direct question and they don't answer and just quote of load of rubbish instead, I wish more politicians would speak their mind instead of towing the party line

I will vote as a no vote is a wasted vote though for now I'm not decided who to vote for, but UKIP wouldn't get my vote as I want us to stay in Europe though we do need to change some of the agreements we have there

[ShayLaB]

Another nice graphic...



Shows that UK is paying about £50 billion a year in interest. That's an enormous amount of money going out of our coffers simply to service a debt. The total debt is still rising so it's important that we at least balance the budget.

There is a limit to what a government can do to reduce the burden while the economy of our largest trading partner (EU) is still struggling. However, the wrong policy can do a lot of damage and everytime the opposition parties open their mouths it is always talk of more spending and less cuts...promises of riches without any explanation of how to pay for it. I didn't vote Conservative last time but I have been converted by the improvent in the economy and I want that to continue.

Economics and monetary policy can be complicated but it still boils down to that you can't spend what you do not have.

[Rihab]

Nigel Farage is like the face of British politics here in Germany. lol

uhm no

and while I'm at it, Germans still hate Putin, AFD isn't happening and the € isn't dying

[UKMusicLova]

You're so off the mark it's unreal, Stevyy

I really am unsure who I will be voting for, I need some more time to think about it.

I'm part of a generation (as many of us are) who feels like we've been let down time and time by politics. It is a vicious cycle really - young people don't vote so politicians create policies that benefit people who do vote (generally the older generations), thus leaving more young people disillusioned and not voting. Doesn't help when you have people like Russell Brand who does have influence saying we shouldn't vote.
We have so many young people who are unemployed, and many of those who technically "aren't" are on zero hour contracts. Nick Clegg somehow managed to get young people interested in politics last time around and then shitted on people who voted for him creating an even bigger disillusionment than there was before.

The Greens were on a roll, but I think Natalie Portman's fluff up will have really damaged them. I've always prefered Caroline Lucas. My problem with the Greens is I like most of their policies except their policies on the environment which is pretty ironic

[Plym]

Nigel Farage is like the face of British politics here in Germany. lol

uhm no

i didnt think so. stevyy has been on this "the uk is anti-europe" rant for a while now.

[stevyy]

if the UK is pro european integration, then i'm relieved, if you say it is so.

[4warduntodawn]

I wish I could vote for the Conservatives but I'm from Northern Ireland and all our party's are sectarian and shite so I'll not be voting

[Marius]

Tories: economically, they are most in sync with my views (low taxes, strong property rights, small public sector, low welfare spending, high defence spending). However, the impression i get is that in their view it is perfectly right to be rich, as long as your grandparents were also rich, but not otherwise. This is because of their obsession with maintaining the well-being of the buy-to-let landlords, landowners and pensioners (credit facilities for home buying which push prices into stratosphere, zoning and planning restrictions which reduce the potential stock of housing, ridiculous benefits for pensioners at the expense of employees, students etc).

Labour: while Conservatives are the party of rich landowners, Labour is the party of benefit recipients and public sector unions. Since i have a very low opinion of unions and of most welfare recipients, i have a low opinion of Labour, too. In addition, the hypocrisy of a man who lives in a £2.3m house in Primrose Hill yet goes on and on about inequality is breathtaking. I really liked Tony Blair, but the current Labour lot deserve nothing but contempt.

LIbDems: I don't really get what this party stands for (presumably some centre-ground between the Tories and Labour), but what i like about them is their focus on staying in the EU. I personally would leave the UK if it were to withdraw from the EU, so obviously we have some common ground there. With someone like Danny Alexander or David Laws in charge rather than the Cameron-clone Clegg and the old Marxist Cable, they could be ok. As it is now, they aren't, which is currently well reflected in the polls.

UKIP: I am of Eastern European descent and also am (relatively) young, have a degree, can spell and put a few words together and don't think the world is stuck in the days when UK was a big empire and black people were sold as slaves. Hence, i cannot have any sympathy for a party of raving lunatics and xenophobes. Next.

Green As I am not interested in global warming, i'll pass on this lot too. Their recent swerve to the extreme left does not help either, and neither does the fact that their leader is a weirdo who has no clue what she is talking about.

SNP, Cymru, the Northern Irish parties: i don't live in their areas of "catchment" so i have no opinion on them. As a rule, i don't think they should vote on anything that does not affect their respective regions.

So, yeah, were i to vote it would be be either Tories or LibDems, but cannot say that any of the parties really represents me.

[Graham76man]

I think most politicians play around with things they don't understand. In doing so they back wrong ideas and thinking which supposedly benefits the groups of people that vote for them. They even convince them that it's good for them
Generally it doesn't and it isn't. We often find this out years later, perhaps after the politician has died.
For example:
ALL Politicians think that spending money on Education is a good thing. It's not! It has serious side effects that effects people and countries in different ways.
This election will see politicians of nearly all the main parties attacking the poor. But the government figures reveal that for every million people claiming Jobless benefits, there is another half a million that they say are entitled to it and yet are not claiming it.
The figures are even worse for pensioners who claim pension credit (money that tops up weak or small pensions to keep them out of poverty). For every pensioner that claims it there's another who is entitled to it (as I said on government figures) who does not. Yet all we here about is "benefit fraud" topped up with TV shows showing dodgy people on "benefit estates".
However when it comes down to it the Department of Work and Pensions causes three times the lost money than benefit fraud does, by simply getting the benefits payments wrong!
That figure however doesn't even match the level of Tax fraud and evasion!
If it was in terms of people the figures would look like this:
Benefit Fraud 1person
Benefit Error 3 people
Tax Fraud 32 people

Remember all the figures quoted here are from the current government, not some "left wing outfit".

Just something to think about when you vote or not

[Wayne]

^ your judgment of a wrong idea, the beautiful thing about a democracy is that everyone has the right to an opinion, an idea to buy into.

Who will you be voting for Graham?

[Brad]

Green As I am not interested in global warming, i'll pass on this lot too.

Um. Global warming isn't something any of us should be "interested" in but taking steps to combat/prevent.

Environmental issues are not the focus of the Green manifesto either. Like every other party, it's just one of the things in there with which they have policies on. In their case, it happens to be a green stance, which they rightly pride themselves upon. It's odd that people still think that's their only/primary focus. It's unfortunate for them.

I'm shocked that the Tories are currently leading the poll. Looks like southern folly but at least it's not UKIP. I won't be voting in the poll and I doubt I'll disclose who I vote for. Maybe after the election.

[Graham76man]

^ your judgment of a wrong idea, the beautiful thing about a democracy is that everyone has the right to an opinion, an idea to buy into.

Who will you be voting for Graham?

The General Election is nothing to do with democracy Being that most people who have voted didn't vote for the party that takes office. Your quite right it's my opinion, but since I'm not a member of Parliament mine can never be credited with being true or factual. That privilege goes to only those with the word Member of Parliament or those classed as advisors to them. Even when years after (in some cases) or soon after it is shown to be wrong, by most of the body that agreed with it. Especially members of Parliament.

In any case I didn't actually state any examples of wrong ideas. The only thing that I said was that Education, which is soon as positive by most MP's - isn't in reality.
Although the Education system has encouraged equality for sections of society. Those same sections have suffered like the rest of us from the negative effects which mostly outweigh the positive. And neither of the positive or negative effects are to do with exam results or the stuff that actually goes off in Education. There's no point having qualifications for jobs which because of the negative side effects have been done away with!

As for who I vote for that is always the Green Party. But that doesn't mean that I agree with everything they do. Indeed I think they are as bad as the rest, but are probably the best of a bad lot. :-?

[Wayne]

Tories hold narrow lead ahead of general election in latest ICM/Guardian poll

Conservatives remain on 36%, while Labour gains three points, Ukip are unchanged with 9%, Green party falls back and Lib Dems hit 25-year low

David Cameron’s Conservatives hold a slender one-point lead according to the latest Guardian/ICM poll, after Labour gained three points over the past month.

The Tories are unchanged on 36%, with Labour on 35% – while both Liberal Democrat and Green support has fallen away from recent surveys.

The Lib Dems plumb entirely new depths. Nick Clegg’s party sinks two points from an already miserable February score to stand at just 8%, which – with a general election just six weeks away – is their worst showing in the long-running Guardian/ICM series in a quarter of a century.

Ahead of them, in third place stands Ukip– unchanged at 9% – giving them a one-point lead over the junior partner in the coalition.



The Greens appear to have paid a price for poor performances by Natalie Bennett, their leader, in media interviews. This month her party sinks three points to 4%, less than half its January standing of 9%.

The poll also finds that there some public anxiety about the role the surging SNP could have in any future government at a time when the electoral arithmetic suggests that Labour would have to reply on SNP support to form a government.

Across the whole of Great Britain, 43% of voters say that they would be “worried about a separatist party deciding who runs the UK”, far more than the mere 14% who feel enthusiastic about “a different party shaking things up at Westminster”.

The potency of this attack line should not be overdone however – a substantial proportion of 37% say that they are “relaxed: Scottish National MPs have as much right to govern” as any other MPs.

ICM records the SNP on 5% overall. In Scotland, in a small sub-sample of the overall poll, their level of support is recorded at 56%.

With the race so close, George Osborne’s budget on Wednesday could be a make-or-break event for Cameron’s hopes of remaining in Downing Street.

Ahead of this, ICM tested voters’ financial mood using a tracker question about feelings about “the economy ... your financial position, and your ability to keep up with the cost of living”, which it has used regularly over the years, and confirmed a generally positive mood, with 61% of respondents reporting that they felt confident, as against just 38% who were not confident.

This is the exact reverse of the figures for the depths of the credit crunch, in July 2008, when by 61% to 38% voters said that they were not confident. It also represents a sharp turnaround from the long semi-slump under the coalition, in 2011/12, when more people than not gave the anxious answer to this same question.

When ICM asked what budget measures which the public would most like to see, raising the level of the personal tax allowance comes out top – the choice of 25%. Osborne has already promised to raise the £10,000-a-year allowance to £10,600 in April, but there is speculation that he may go higher.

There is less support for cutting petrol duty, the priority of just 6%, even though that is something Osborne has repeatedly done.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... rdian-poll

[Marius]

ALL Politicians think that spending money on Education is a good thing. It's not! It has serious side effects that effects people and countries in different ways.

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean policies like producing millions of graduates with Mickey Mouse degrees who then end up working in McDonalds or are you saying that the state making sure everyone gets a basic level of literacy (ie staying in school until 16-18) is bad?

LE: just read your other post, answering Wayne's. I am of the opinion that someone educated would be able to switch careers reasonably easily, should their current job be done away with. For example, i started working in accounting, moved into a type of job in the City which has long been off-shored, continued in a job that has been made uneconomical by new regulations and currently do a totally different job which involves lots of coding. Having a number of degrees and qualifications made these career changes much easier.

This election will see politicians of nearly all the main parties attacking the poor. But the government figures reveal that for every million people claiming Jobless benefits, there is another half a million that they say are entitled to it and yet are not claiming it.

I don't think many politicians attack the poor, generally right-wing politicians attack those perceived as lazy (and hence poor) and left-wing politicians attack rich people instead. No one (myself included) says that someone who is poor because of a permanent handicap which prevents them from holding a normal job should starve. However, many agree that someone with no qualifications and who refuses jobs like cleaning toilets should not receive benefits

I agree with you, however, that benefit fraud is a false issue and that it means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things when it comes to balancing the books. IMO the big problem is the very existence of some benefits, not the fact that 2-3% of the amount is fraudulently claimed. I doubt any sane person can seriously argue that people receiving housing benefit should live in areas like Kensington & Chelsea or that pensioners that own 2 London flats and rent them out for £2,000 a month each should receive free bus passes and heating subsidies. Or that people whose kids live in other countries should receive child benefit for them.

[oasisbobo]

Any thoughts on the budget?