Jeremy Corbyn

Quoted from Maringer

Wrong. We don't think everybody thinks the same way that we do, though I personally despair at how self-centred and thoughtless lots of people can be.

But hey, if you're happy with hundreds of thousands of children being made homeless due to the latest Tory benefit cuts, more power to you.

The DWP reckons 'just' 330,000 children will be affected by the cap but these numbers don't seem to add up:

https://speye.wordpress.com/20.....-not-scaremongering/

Quoted from Maringer

Didn't have any problems with that link myself? Perhaps you need a different adblocker on your browser?

Regarding your comments about the Labour party taking debt up to £500 million, I assume you mean something different there or there has been a typo because that's a drop in the ocean of the economy? As I noted in my posts in the General Election thread, up to the point where the economic crash occurred in 2007, the debt to GDP ratio was lower under the Labour government than was inherited in 1997 and this despite the fact that there had been considerable investment in schools and hospitals and wages had been increased. The debt ratio for the UK was lower than all of the other G7 countries as well (even if you include the deferred debt from the stupid PFI schemes). Brown wasn't profligate - it's simply not true. Any voter who believed this was misinformed.

I've never quite understood this stuff about the 'New Labour' government or even the Miliband bunch as being 'anti-business'. They didn't raise corporation tax (Osborne is currently engaged in a race to the bottom by cutting it), the New Labour business policies, especially, allowed the financial sector to balloon to ridiculous levels with enormous borrowing by business which ultimately led to the devastating crash back in 2007/08. What is anti business there, I wonder? The Telegraph periodically (before elections) publishes its letters from 'business leaders' (i.e. Conservative Party donors) warning about how terrible the Labour party are. The especially amusing one this time was the letter from "5,000 small businesses" which was actually organised by the Conservative party itself though the report made no mention of this! Absolutely shameful propaganda. Fundamentally, I think the issue is that any support for Unions is seen as anti-business which is utter nonsense of course. The latest attacks on Unions with more punitive legislation come at a time when the level of industrial action is at a historical low - virtually no strikes going on at all so, as with so much from this government, it's just another ideological attack.

I do have to laugh when you praise Osborne. As I've noted elsewhere, he inherited an economy with growth of around 2% following a recession and his austerity led us to the brink of a double-dip recession. We've had the weakest recovery from a recession on record, real wages aren't above levels from 2007 yet (pretty much unheard of in economic history). He borrowed more in 5 years than every Labour government, ever, oversaw a doubling of the national debt (not entirely his fault though his policies were dire) and utterly failed in his plans to eliminate the deficit. He managed to cut the deficit by around half which was actually pretty much what was planned by Brown in his last election! Difference was, of course, that the front loading of austerity has led to the loss of several percent of growth (at the very least). That's something we'll never get back and has cost thousands of pounds for every man, woman and child in the country.

The inflation target is 2% for a very good reason economically so lauding 0% inflation is preposterous (and on the borderline of damaging deflation) and it is down almost entirely to the fall in oil prices which Osborne had absolutely nothing to do with! It's like claiming credit for it being a warm day!

The increase in employment is a good thing to some degree but unfortunately to many of them are not good jobs. A huge rise in the numbers of people in part-time work who want more, underemployment is rife and productivity continues to fall. As noted, wage growth is pretty much non-existent which isn't too surprising when you consider the continued pay freezes on public sector workers. Private sector and public sector wages are linked closely due to the way that the market works so deliberately suppressing one directly affects the other.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Osborne is an economically inept chancellor. Politically astute, no doubt, but to the overall detriment of the country.

Osborne's latest 'emergency' budget was, unsurprisingly, regressive hitting the poorest hardest and giving away to the wealthier of society. You're lauding the rise of the inheritance tax level, something which will benefit the children of just the richest few percent of the population whilst praising cuts which will affect the poorest of workers. Note that many people in work will be worse off under this latest bill. It's all very well and good praising the rise in tax thresholds but, as the IFS noted, the people who benefit most from this aren't the lowest paid, but the wealthy. The associated cuts to tax credits and housing benefits mean that the poorest are worse off. As I note so often, we're the 6th wealthiest country in the world, but you're cheering on policies which impoverish the poor whilst transferring wealth to the better off.

You seem very confused about what the proposed mansion tax was as you're comparing it to inheritance tax? They are entirely different things. A mansion tax was fundamentally a graduated property tax which is actually a very good idea though the particular implementation was a poor idea. Much better to instigate a graduated property tax as found in most developed countries.

The apprentice thing is an amusing one. The funding plans for this are a bit wavy but answer me this, the 3 million number would indicate that around 1 in 10 of the workforce will be in an apprenticeship in the next 5 years. Is this in any way believable? Where are you going to find enough trainers to work with these apprentices? The numbers don't make one jot of sense. Lots of shelf-stacking 'apprenticeships' coming up, I expect. What are the chances that the 'apprenticeships' also come with low levels of wages, eh? Pretty high.

The plans for recouping money from tax avoidance and evasion are ambitious and, frankly, unlikely to come to fruition. Amongst the other cuts to goverment services, HMRC has been hacked right back and it seems improbable that they will have the resources or the expertise to get anywhere near the £5 billion figure in the budget. Time will tell, but don't be surprised if this doesn't materialise. The number of workers at HMRC have been cut by 40% over the past 10 years. Doesn't seem likely to me that cuts in levels such as this can be sustainable.

The rest of your post is just the usual Tory stuff about 'shirkers vs workers'. You seem to imagine that every young person that needs assistance with housing is slacking off or deliberately has kids just to get a home. As with all of these stories you read in the press, they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Sweeping generalisations in the assumptions about the young which also ignores the fact that youth unemployment is 3 times higher than the rate for the general population! Not by choice, most of the time.

[/b]As for the point about removing benefits after the second child, please note that we have a severely aging population. The baby boomers are retiring now and the increase in expected lifespan due to improved health and medicine means somebody is going to need to be looking after them and earning taxes to pay for their pensions. If you try to persuade UK citizens to have fewer children, this implies greater immigration in the future to support the elderly both financially and socially. I'm sure you're all for that[b].

Quoted from grimps

The problem is that the left don't seem to understand that most tax payers that are not working for the government don't like to see their hard earned money being spunked up the wall on wasters and spongers.
Why should I get up every morning and go to a job I hate to pay for someone else to stay in bed ?
Why should I pay for someone to have three or four kids with absolutely no plan or intentions of how to pay for them ?

Quoted from grimps

The problem is that the left don't seem to understand that most tax payers that are not working for the government don't like to see their hard earned money being spunked up the wall on wasters and spongers.
Why should I get up every morning and go to a job I hate to pay for someone else to stay in bed ?
Why should I pay for someone to have three or four kids with absolutely no plan or intentions of how to pay for them ?

Quoted Text

Firstly we are concerned that the savings from this measure, currently estimated ay £270m savings p.a from 2014-2015 does not take account of the additional costs to local authorities (through homelessness and temporary accommodation). In fact we think it is likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost.

Quoted from Grim74

This is a poor argument from you Maringer, you are jusifying paying parents to have extra children they cannot afford.

I wouldn't worry to much about the baby boomers retiring as I'm sure this lot will help out -
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5632/uk_muslim_population_of_26_million_by_2051

Quoted from grimps

The problem is that the left don't seem to understand that most tax payers that are not working for the government don't like to see their hard earned money being spunked up the wall on wasters and spongers.
Why should I get up every morning and go to a job I hate to pay for someone else to stay in bed ?
Why should I pay for someone to have three or four kids with absolutely no plan or intentions of how to pay for them ?