General election

No vote will only help the Tories around here and it'll be a lot closer this time with the grey-haired brigade lulled into false sense of strong, stable security. If you don't like them don't give them one less vote to make up.

Quoted from Maringer

Well, New Labour didn't try to deal with inequality, did they?.

No under Labour income equality was the largest in modern times according to the IFS we had a sharp rise in income equality, as well as a fall in the income of the poorest fifth of the population, in the following report they mention income inequality had risen in each of the last three years and is now at its highest level since our comparable times began in 1961 -

https://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/c109.pdf

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Now, Grim, you may perhaps be lucky enough to be among the top 5 or 10 percent of earners whose pockets are being filled by Tory policies at the direct expense of the poorest but, if not, why are you so eager to see people struggling to make ends meet? Who suffers most when the poorest have their income cut? The answer is obviously their children.

Well I'm definitely not in the top 5% but being in the top 10 percent does not mean you are rich or even well off far from it, what it does mean is that we pay around 59% of all income tax raised nearly twice as much (35%) when the high taxing 1970s Labour government of Gallagher was in charge, proving the higher you raise tax the less you get in.

I don't recall being eager to see people struggling to make ends meet that would be sick of course I feel for the children it breaks my heart, I have family on benefits and I know times are hard but to be honest when haven't they? I am in the same trade now as I was in the 90s I regularly visit people on benefits unemployed on the sick you name it and I can honestly say I think things are much better now from what I saw back then, I'm sure if I could compare the 70s with the 90s I'd be saying the same thing.

It would be wonderful to pay people on benefits a lot more like under new Labour but you then end up with people choosing benefits rather than taking up 40 hours of work, I've lost count of the number of people that said to me at that time "what's the point in working when I will only be about £20 a week better off" Labour took away the pride of earning a wage, took away the need to work, introduced work agency's whilst sending out search party's across Europe for the migrant workers, and don't get me started on poverty (relative) and the foodbank craze that skew statistics you should know my opinion by now.

Quoted from ginnywings

We haven't had a true socialist in power for a long time

I'd even thank Muhammad for that we never ever want to go back to the 1970s

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I really cannot understand how any working class bloke can think that the Tories are a good bet for them

The clue was there in the sentence Labour are not interested in the working class unless you are from outside the UK, where as the Tories seem to want to help the workers tax allowances have gone up, free child places we get 30 hours now brilliant my wife can now go back to work to just about full time more money in my pocket happy days. People are now thinking it doesn't pay to sit at home depressed they are out there seeking work unemployment has gone down, more kids are now seeing their parents go to work this will trickle down.I'm not saying this is perfect far from it they have to do a hell of a lot more with low pay, zero hour contracts etc.

I have learned a lot from this debate on here, it has been excellent.I wish that I believed in Corbyn but for me his history is so poor that I could not vote for him. It is a terrible shame for the labour party to be saddled with a leader with so much baggage as a more credible option could well have beaten an arrogant Tory campaign. I suspect that in spite of the rhetoric a lot us will revert to type when it comes to voting
I think labour have been shambolic up to now in the campaign but as a conservative supporter usually, I think May has been even worse and her evasive approach and ill thought out policy and U turns has shown she has lacked substance. We will see how close it is and as someone who has nearly always been self employed I will make my way regardless of how it ends up as I have little faith in any of them.  UTM

Quoted from Marinerz93

As a life long Labour voter I can not see Corbyn winning because of how he handles himself and I don't care much for Melanie Onn either.

During the Brexit debate he was pretty non existent but even though I like a lot of Labours manifesto, it's his past dealings with Argentinian embassy and Sinn Féin, a vote for him would feel like getting into a soiled bed.

I agree with ginny on the Tories, the sort of illegitimates who'll intercourse you in the behind and not have the decency to give you a reach round.

I won't vote Lim Dem because I hate Tim "Gimpy McGimpface" Farron, his whinny voice just grates on me and I just want to punch him in the pie hole every time he opens his mouth.

The greens can suck my CO2 emmissions and UKIP are a bookmark in history.

Looking like I'll sit this one out unless Melanie posts some nudes.

With you on most of this except Melanie could sit on my face and I'd still not vote Labour, credit to them though for their manifesto bless em, really well laid out compared to the Tories to be fair even if I don't believe a word of it.

Quoted from Zmariner

I have learned a lot from this debate on here, it has been excellent.I wish that I believed in Corbyn but for me his history is so poor that I could not vote for him. It is a terrible shame for the labour party to be saddled with a leader with so much baggage as a more credible option could well have beaten an arrogant Tory campaign. I suspect that in spite of the rhetoric a lot us will revert to type when it comes to voting
I think labour have been shambolic up to now in the campaign but as a conservative supporter usually, I think May has been even worse and her evasive approach and ill thought out policy and U turns has shown she has lacked substance. We will see how close it is and as someone who has nearly always been self employed I will make my way regardless of how it ends up as I have little faith in any of them.  UTM

If we talk about history, Corbyn is one of the few to have stuck to his principles. He had always been the
Lowest expense claimer even when MPs thought none would ever notice their sneaky greed, yes he spoke to sinn fein, but without talking we may still be totting up IRA and UDA killings as well as ISIS. He stood up against Apartheid while Tory ministers were quite happy to deal with South Africa. The Tories were quite happy to sell arms to Saddam which he stood against ,just as they are happy to sell arms to the Saudis who are the biggest sponsors of ISIS.  He was against the Invasion of Iraq, a war that caused chaos in the region and humiliation for our army.
The greedy establishment wants the Tories or Neo liberals like Blair in power so they can make money unchecked. If you want to believe Tory propaganda and spin you can, (even a good chunk of Labour MPs did and do )but remember these papers and news channels are owned by non doms who like paying no tax, and large foreign investors who certainly do not have working peoples interests at heart
You may be quite happy that the country is so unequal and the NHS is falling apart and not voting or voting for more of the same can show that.
Corbyn is not more of the same, he his a man with principles that is why there is such an establishment campaign against himj

I never said that I was happy with an unequal country but if that means people who invest more time in job related education, work longer hours and take the risks associated with setting up their on businesses get more out of the system I am fine with that. I am also happy to contribute to the cost of my kids education I donot expect the state or other tax payers to contribute. I like the NHS but with changing technology and an ageing population this is not as simple as throwing money at it. I respect the philosophy of the left but simply do not trust it can be delivered utm

Quoted from Zmariner

I think labour have been shambolic up to now in the campaign but as a conservative supporter usually, I think May has been even worse and her evasive approach and ill thought out policy and U turns has shown she has lacked substance. We will see how close it is and as someone who has nearly always been self employed I will make my way regardless of how it ends up as I have little faith in any of them.  UTM

You're taking the urine, surely?

The odd minor gaffe with figures aside (yep, Abbott is rubbish), the view is that their campaign has been very good. If you want to think about Corbyn forgetting his figures on Woman's Hour the other week, just compare to the Chancellor who understated the cost of HS2 by £20 billion earlier in the month! In defence of all of them, expecting politicians to memorise figures to quote by rote shows exactly what is wrong with political reporting these days. Always looking for a 'Gotcha' moment instead of actually dealing with the facts sensibly. Only to be expected when the Woman's Hour presenter is a Daily Telegraph journalist as well, but there you go.

Thinking about it, Chancellor of the Exchequer is considered the second most senior role in a government - where has Box Office Phil been for the past few weeks? Marginalised by the wholly incompetent May. The idea that May will be any use in the difficult negotiations ahead is laughable when you consider how she appears even in stage-managed events. Still, you've got to chuckle. David Davis tells us he has 100 pages of notes about our plans for the forthcoming negotiations with the EU. Hope it's in really small text as there are going to be over 700 treaties which need to be renegotiated as part of the Brexit process...

As I've said before, I'm an evil Tory bigot.  However, I'm really warming to Jeremy Corbyn, the man.  I think he's been very solid in campaigning and has come across really well.  The Tory campaign by contrast has been shocking.  It's almost as if they think they can't lose and have been trying to do all they can to annoy their core vote (even though in my view they are making some sensible if not thoroughly thought through suggestions).  We've clearly got to put far more into social care, for example, and actually taxing the wealth of pensioners seems like a reasonable approach, but the devil will be in the details.  To date, most of the Tory's announcements have been shockingly bad politics.

We can contrast that with Labour's wish list approach of giving away shed loads of stuff for free, paid for by those horrible rich people.  I weirdly find myself sneaking into the top 5% earners and therefore on the hook for a tiny tax increase if they get in.  Except, I won't be.  I'll actually pay less tax because I'll salary sacrifice a bit more of my salary to keep me under the limit. Therefore, instead of paying 40% tax, I'll actually pay 0%.  Most of the people I know who are in a similar boat will do the same.  This is just one tiny example of how large changes in tax rates can influence behaviour.  I have plenty of other issues with the so-called costings as well, such as, I think there's a levy on off-shore trusts owning UK property which has been badged as an anti-avoidance measure and supposed to bring in £3 billion or so.  It hasn't been tax efficient to hold property in this way for several years thanks to the least popular Chancellor of recent times (much like the old PM's off-shore trust that was woefully tax inefficient).  In short, McDonnell genuinely hasn't got a clue when it comes to taxation. As much as people hate stealth taxes, having a broad based taxation system is, in my view, sensible.  

The Tories by contrast, have not committed to not raising taxes, to keep their options open if things go pear-shaped (and post-Brexit, whoever is negotiating it, I think they might do).        

Just realised, that I'd missed a key point from my second paragraph, in that taking aim at the rich, is actually pretty good (if divisive) politics.