twit of the Week

Martin Vickers for doing nothing for my Town

Quoted from 139914

Unsurprisingly your opening line is 100% incorrect.  We do have a shoot to kill policy, the Police and armed forces are trained to aim for the largest body mass which happens to be the centre of the chest.  No attempt is ever made to either 'wing' the target, neither are shots fired without issuing a clear warning.

However, if your post (and many other posts spouting the same blind allegiance) is in any way referencing a scatter gun approach, then I think you'll find that Labour have already adopted that policy.  How to win voters Labour style.... I know, let's give the pensioners more..... I know, let's pay the nurses more.... I know, let's have another 20,000 police.... I know, let's abolish university fee's.... and so on.  No clear plans on how to finance the dream sheet, not properly considered.  Just to add some balance you have the wonderful Conservative party, adding wealth to the rich while supporting the welfare state, albeit on a more realistic scale.  The reality is that the opposite ends of the scale are pandered to by the two leading UK political party's, meanwhile the ones who foot the bill are those in the 50 to 100k bracket.  I worked hard all my life to get into that bracket, I wasn't anticipating having to pay more than my fair share to subsidise those who contribute less, nor those who don't need my help.  I'd like to see a party that stands up for the rights of people in my bracket, oh pray doyen of all things political, who might that be?

I worked hard to get in that bracket too. But I also recognise that my quality of life and everyone else's (probably even life) depends on the efforts of a lot of people who work just as hard, physically, for a lot less money, and in worse conditions with far less scope for flexibility in when and where they work, and doing valuable jobs. Get rid of binmen and cleaners, and farm workers and see how long we last.

My parents worked hard all their lives. My old man having to get up in the dark and work in cold damp conditions down dock, for a poor wage. He would never have troubled the higher tax bracket in his dreams. I wouldn't want to pull up the drawbridge on others like him and their children on the spurious basis that they are not contributing as much. Just because they're not earning 50 or 80 k a year doesn't mean they are any less deserving than you or I.

I'm sick of this being a country where working families are having to rent shitty, damp houses, with no security of tenure and whose children will have to get into massive debt to get higher education, and one where 20 year olds work in shops for the (non-living) wage on zero hours contracts being expected to turn up when it suits the company but being told to intercourse off when it doesn't, or 40 year old women doing community care jobs that also pay the minimum wage on zero hours contracts that don't even pay travel time between clients. In fact, I'm embarrassed to live in a country so rich where this happens.

Quoted from Grim74

Calm down old boy stop getting ahead of yourself.... where did I say cash donation??? The whole point of the article was a follow up to my previous comments on her being a fat greedy anti - English out of touch pig, the article shows the hypocrisy from yet another metropolitan elite who's sees fit to take a donation from her immoral, thieving ambulance/tank chasing lawyer chums.

Ah, when you said money, I thought you were just confused. In fact, you surely must have been because otherwise, why would you get so excited about posting a new link about exactly the same sort of 'donation' which had already been discussed? Very odd.

You also seem to have forgotten that the donation in question came years before the company was accused of any wrongdoing.

As you're so keen to criticise Thornberry for taking those donations, I'm sure you'll agree that Theresa May should be criticised for accepting donations from a businessman convicted of paying bribes to a nice chap called Saddam Hussein:

https://www.theguardian.com/po.....nhead-saddam-hussein

Exactly the same thing, as far as I can tell.

If you want to play the donations from fraudsters and criminals game, I'm afraid you won't win because the Tories are notorious for it.

Quoted from 139914

Unsurprisingly your opening line is 100% incorrect.  We do have a shoot to kill policy, the Police and armed forces are trained to aim for the largest body mass which happens to be the centre of the chest.  No attempt is ever made to either 'wing' the target, neither are shots fired without issuing a clear warning.

However, if your post (and many other posts spouting the same blind allegiance) is in any way referencing a scatter gun approach, then I think you'll find that Labour have already adopted that policy.  How to win voters Labour style.... I know, let's give the pensioners more..... I know, let's pay the nurses more.... I know, let's have another 20,000 police.... I know, let's abolish university fee's.... and so on.  No clear plans on how to finance the dream sheet, not properly considered.  Just to add some balance you have the wonderful Conservative party, adding wealth to the rich while supporting the welfare state, albeit on a more realistic scale.  The reality is that the opposite ends of the scale are pandered to by the two leading UK political party's, meanwhile the ones who foot the bill are those in the 50 to 100k bracket.  I worked hard all my life to get into that bracket, I wasn't anticipating having to pay more than my fair share to subsidise those who contribute less, nor those who don't need my help.  I'd like to see a party that stands up for the rights of people in my bracket, oh pray doyen of all things political, who might that be?

Brilliant stuff that. Your first paragraph telling me that I am wrong about the police operating a shoot to kill policy shows that you really don't understand what a shoot to kill policy actually is!

Every firearms officer/soldier is taught to shoot at the centre of mass as it increases the chance of disabling the assailant. Shooting for the centre of mass is not the same as shooting to kill, even if it makes death more likely. If they were shooting to kill, they would shoot a few times in the body and then finish them off with a shot or two to the head. As the murderers of Lee Rigby currently serving time show, this is not the case with our police officers.

My guess about the attack at the weekend is that the fake suicide vests led to all three terrorists being killed straight out. If the firearms officers were faced with a man with a knife, they would shoot in the body multiple times, until sure he was disabled. If faced with somebody also apparently armed with a bomb, they would ensure the kill was made.

As for the rest of your post, I'll start off by saying that I'm not sure you need to be so pissy about the fact that I'm pretty well-read about the current economic and political situation. Also, claiming I have blind allegiance is laughable when every statement I make can be backed with data points proving my case.

Anyway, as I've noted before (possibly in this thread - can't be bothered to check), everything on the list is eminently affordable providing there is the will in government to pay for it by raising sufficient tax. Plenty of other countries in Europe manage it - not coincidentally, the ones with higher living standards and better educational attainment than us.

How can we possibly afford to provide free University education? Well, I received free University education 25-odd years ago, most current MPs received free University education, many EU countries offer free University education (and those that don't charge an order of magnitude less than we do). Seems it must be pretty affordable to me when there's the will. How about paying nurses a fair wage - surely nobody could be against that? Well, in real terms NHS nurses and other workers have had a pay cut of 17% since 2010 and the 1% pay freeze is planned to continue from what I can see so nurses will become poorer still. MPs? Just the 1.4% pay rise for them. One class of government worker worth a bigger pay rise than another, apparently.

Who should you vote for? Whoever you like, of course.

I'm just trying to make people aware of the truth behind the Tory bullshite. If you're earning £50k to £100k, good for you. You'll be considerably better off than you were back in 2010 due to the tax changes made by the Tories. If you're happy with this and don't mind that it has effectively come out the pockets of the poorest in society as well as nurses, NHS workers, civil servants etc., then that's perfectly fine, Jack.

Vote for the Tories now and the forthcoming benefit cuts will, as the IFS noted, take an average of £2,500 per year out of the pockets of almost 3 million of the poorest working families. I'm guessing that a lot of them (more than a million and a half families, perhaps?) work at least as hard as you. You'll probably be earning a bit more, of course though who knows - the Tories manifesto doesn't tell us if they are planning any other changes.

Your choice, but personally, if I was in the top 5 percent of earners in the country on £80k+, I certainly wouldn't mind paying another 5p on each pound I earned in excess of £80k.

Seems as though Kingston Mariner takes my viewpoint as well.

Two words that sum up why NO-ONE shoukd even for a moment consider voting Labour.

DIANE ABBOTT.

Maringer, you miss the point completely, let me simplify for you.  Why should I, or anyone else in the same bracket, pay more in tax as a percentage of gross earnings?  It works both ways of course, why should I be able to claim 40% on expenses or have the luxury of 40% tax relief on pension contributions?

I believe in a single rate of income tax, change the mentality of those who earn more should pay more.  A much fairer system would be to tax higher on expenditure, increase VAT to 30% on non-essential items as an example.  

We can all sit back and say 'well if I earned £x per year I'd happily pay an extra xp in tax.  It's a bit like telling people you'll give them 50k if you win the lottery.  You probably won't and you probably wouldn't.  

One final point, you claim that you're trying to make people aware of Conservative bullshite.  Be honest, it isn't limited to the Conservatives, it's political bull from all.  I have no political allegiance, my vote will be cast on the basis of what's best for my family and I, it certainly won't be cast on historic family or community beliefs, and definitely not on the opinion of a self-proclaimed 'learned' message board bore.

Ah, right. See where you're coming from as regards taxation.

Flat rate income tax alongside a high rate of VAT would be highly regressive and would further increase inequality to a huge degree which harms the growth of an economy. The poor would almost certainly end up paying more and the main people to benefit would be the wealthy who already take by far the biggest slice of the pie.

The theory sounds appealing but the actuality is something different. Here's a reasonable pro and con thing from the BBC the other year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22575135

As Murphy says, a flat rate tax is used by those who tend to be proponents of (very small) government and want to shrink the size of the state as much as they can.

Fundamentally, proponents of a flat tax tend to be the very right wing TLA (three letter acronym) 'think tanks' of the type that never divulge who funds them.

The Tax Payers Alliance mentioned in the BBC article is one of these from the UK (it's not really an alliance, believe it or not, but a private company funded by wealthy, often anonymous donors). Of course, the right wing press in the UK (owned by tax exiles or foreigners to a man) is very keen on quoting the TPA.

There are loads more of them in the US as well - Adam Smith Institute, American Enterprise Institute and so on.

Serious proponents of a flat rate tax want to change our society hugely - they are the sort who are ideologically opposed to the NHS.

Can we have a Midfield General election or something instead?

Quoted from Maringer

Ah, right. See where you're coming from as regards taxation.

Flat rate income tax alongside a high rate of VAT would be highly regressive and would further increase inequality to a huge degree which harms the growth of an economy. The poor would almost certainly end up paying more and the main people to benefit would be the wealthy who already take by far the biggest slice of the pie.

The theory sounds appealing but the actuality is something different. Here's a reasonable pro and con thing from the BBC the other year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22575135

As Murphy says, a flat rate tax is used by those who tend to be proponents of (very small) government and want to shrink the size of the state as much as they can.

Fundamentally, proponents of a flat tax tend to be the very right wing TLA (three letter acronym) 'think tanks' of the type that never divulge who funds them.

The Tax Payers Alliance mentioned in the BBC article is one of these from the UK (it's not really an alliance, believe it or not, but a private company funded by wealthy, often anonymous donors). Of course, the right wing press in the UK (owned by tax exiles or foreigners to a man) is very keen on quoting the TPA.

There are loads more of them in the US as well - Adam Smith Institute, American Enterprise Institute and so on.

Serious proponents of a flat rate tax want to change our society hugely - they are the sort who are ideologically opposed to the NHS.

I'll start with an apology, the message room bore comment was uncalled for and not necessary.  Let me make a point please, we must get away from this mis-concept that 40% tax payers are rich, it simply isn't the case in the vast majority.  The threshold is artificially low, oddly enough Labour and in particular Gordon Brown served only to compound the issue.

Let's be clear, average earnings are as equally distorted by the very highly paid as they are the very poor.  My point is that the two major party's are ignoring the interests of those in the middle ground.  Whichever of the two succeeds will be of no benefit to me or the majority.  I ask again, which party best represents my interests because to be honest, it's rather murky.

Quoted from Maringer

Ah, when you said money, I thought you were just confused. In fact, you surely must have been because otherwise, why would you get so excited about posting a new link about exactly the same sort of 'donation' which had already been discussed? Very odd.

You also seem to have forgotten that the donation in question came years before the company was accused of any wrongdoing.

As you're so keen to criticise Thornberry for taking those donations, I'm sure you'll agree that Theresa May should be criticised for accepting donations from a businessman convicted of paying bribes to a nice chap called Saddam Hussein:

https://www.theguardian.com/po.....nhead-saddam-hussein

Exactly the same thing, as far as I can tell.

If you want to play the donations from fraudsters and criminals game, I'm afraid you won't win because the Tories are notorious for it.

Sorry Maringer but surprisingly that's a poor attempt from you🙄 Your trying to compare a constituency receiving one questionable donation from many hundreds, to a prominent member of the shadow cabinet colluding with and taking donation payments, from her ambulance chasing lawyer chums that specialised in bringing misery for over a decade, to our brave war heroes with false claims of abuse, torture, and murder. Absolute scum.