BS: UK political parties for oblivion?

Subject: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:30 PM

Theresa May, other right wing loonies, and the unspeakeble and corrupt Liam Fox jostle to take the conservatives as far right as UKIP or futher.

Clegg rebuffs the views of his expert economist Cable on the need for "Plan B". Activists quit at the party conference because of the coalition.

The Church of England, once "the Tory party at prayer", lines up against the bedroom tax and the welfare cuts.


We all knew, I think, that the Lib-Dems were headed for oblivion by their brand being tainted by the conservatives, but even though the Etonians had revealed that they were still "the nasty party" too many are tending to want to make it nastier. Now they may also be headed for oblivion before a Labour landslide at the electon.

Subject: RE: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:31 PM

Ooops, BS.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 03:59 AM

Ok. I'll wade in.

Both Conservative and Labour are scared of not forming the next government. But one of them will do?

LibDem is in my opinion worthy of your withering denouncement. But Eastleigh should at least give cause for thoughtful reflection.

I reckon you should give the electorate more respect. Despite the soundbites and bloody noses at by elections, main results tend to reflect the vox pop. At the last election labour were punished but Conservative ideas weren't what people wanted hence hung parliament. UKIP are the present outpouring of frustration for many but not fit for running Churchill's whelk stand. Their policies are a tribute to Screaming Lord Such on marching powder.

Lighten up. We vote and the government wins. T'was ever thus.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 04:20 AM

UKIP splits the Tory vote and will prevent their election if no agreement is reached.
Together they got more than half the vote at Eastleigh, LIb Dems less than a third.
So, a right of centre Eurosceptic electorate got a left of centre Eurofanatic party elected.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Musket
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 06:22 AM

The electorate are not right of centre Eurosceptic.

The media are building a pathetic joke up in order to keep real politicians on their toes. UKIP are not a political party, have no policies and any examination beyond the Daily Mail moans about Johnny Foreigner sees the odious idiots for what they are. Racist xenophobic fools who need to rebuild the disgraceful British Empire to fund even the less stupid parts of what they promise.

Dave Such, as I said above, would have been proud of them and BNP/NF can drop out of society now as their work is done with every sheep vote for Farage and his protest movement.

If any party needs to strike a pact with UKIP, they have no mandate to stand for election. Cameron, for all his faults knows this far more than the well heeled less educated idiots who think a mainstream party thinks as they do on account of Daddy being the local treasurer in 1949.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 06:31 AM

Yeah! I suppose that the Tories will get thrown out at the next election and another bunch of, slightly less extreme but smugger, right of centre free marketeers, i.e. the Labour Party, will get elected ... and round and round and round ...

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Musket
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 06:34 AM

Welcome to social democracy!

On a serious note, I support it. Only because I have never been told of a better system mind, but I do support the idea in terms of stability and opportunity coupled with a social agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 07:36 AM

You obviously don't live in the city that I live in - one in which the city council is dominated by Labour. They are smug, authoritarian and extremely poor at consulting the various communities that they contemptuously 'lord it over'. They are much more concerned about the 'rights' of property developers to make huge profits than the rights of citizens or the local environment. Trouble is, the electorate either doesn't vote at all at council elections, or automatically and unthinkingly votes Labour. Labour voters internal script seems to go something like this: "My grandad mined coal with his teeth, and if (Old) Labour was good enough for him, (New) Labour is good enough for me!" Unthinking dogma which, of course, fails to notice that New Labour is a very different beast from Old Labour.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 09:17 AM

What we need is a party that doesn't lower taxes, and increase government spending.
Cut VAT, increase taxes, build houses.
If the Lib Dmes aren't involved in a coalition, after the next election, then UKIP will be. Mark my words.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 09:19 AM

So, anybody worked out what the total number of chickens will be by May 2015?

Enough egg-on-the-face to go round?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 09:38 AM

Ah well. Not only my granddad but I used to mine the ruddy stuff myself..

I take your point though. Traditional voting being what it is, a combination of thoughtful and loony voting combine to give a majority. Most people would feel uncomfortable voting for the traditional "other lot" and to be honest I have yet to see myself voting Tory. Whether that is heritage or them having nothing to offer in my view is academic. I just haven't and doubt I ever will. Which is odd because I am fully aware that to feel your vote counts you have to be prepared to float it. Even occasionally voting for a protest platform like Save the Sausage or UKIP.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 10:58 AM

Saving the sausage is undoubtedly the single most important issue facing the UK in the 21st century. I refer in particular to the brightest star in the sausage constellation - the Lincolnshire Sausage. Ambrosia.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 11:44 AM

Cumberland, every time

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 11:53 AM

Nah, there's something rather unnerving about those....kinda looks like it's trying to shove its head up its own arse! There are are several things I prefer straight, and a sausage is one of them. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 02:30 PM

Here in real (North) Lincolnshire the butcher in Crowle does Jack sausages which are Lincolnshire but far more herbs etc for grown ups.

When I come from in Derbyshire straight sausages are also a virtue but they don't seem so fussy around Doncaster. ....

Sorry, far better than talking politics. Bridge started it then buggered off. Pity cos he gives good entertainment value when he starts ranting.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 03:44 PM

I'm a Yorkshireman but the best sausages I've ever tried are ' Welsh Dragon '

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 04:37 PM

"Sorry, far better than talking politics"

Couldn't agree more. The butcher in Kirton Lindsey market place makes some wonderful varieties, including pork & cider which I've eaten on a number of occasions at Brandy Wharf. Very, very nice with a pint of still cider.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 04:58 PM

You'd be far better off with no political parties at all. And so would we. It might be possible to form an honest and sensible government if there were no political parties corrupting the process.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 01:25 AM

Yep, do away with political parties and introduce free sausages for all.
Sausages - The One True Path.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 04:57 AM

Ah, but that's part of the Etonian plot. Death by sausage for the working class. Preferably the cheapest sausage.

And speaking of working, that's what I've been doing. That and playing a couple of gigs. Sorry to have a life and all that.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Musket
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 05:33 AM

The cheapest sausage? That's bollocks that is. (Or would be if horse wasn't cheaper.)

You don't have to apologise for having a sorry life. I'm having one this week. Stopped trying to regulate healthcare and from next month, trying to run a part of it. Hence a couple of weeks doing nowt, bugger all.

Sausages may be the one true path, but in order to fill in the box saying "religion" on monitoring sheets our public sector employers insist on, I joined The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster the other year, and as sausages are not made of pasta, you are nothing but a heretic sir! We Pastafarians know better...

(Someone told me that there has been a schism and there is now a REFORMED Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Might see if they are better, might do Nectar cards or something?)

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 05:52 AM

The Flying Spaghetti Monster completely lacks any qualities that would entitle it to legitimately be someone's focus of worship. It's too easily defined, it has very obvious limitations, and that just doesn't work.

That is the main thing wrong with all forms of idolatry. They're extremely limited, both in their characteristics, in their concept, and in their definition. They're just bigger versions of other limited things that we're already quite familiar with. And that means...no big deal!

For instance: it clearly looks like spaghetti, and it flies, and it's a "monster", therefore it's measureably large and/or monstrous, and all that simply doesn't work. God either...

1. doesn't look like anything

or

2. looks like everything

and as a result

3. is immeasurable, neither small nor large but simply infinite in both directions, indefinable, has either all or none of the various   characteristics we can come up with in a definition, and cannot be seen, unless seen implicitly in everything.

And I think I'll just leave it at that, rather than elaborating further. ;-) It wouldn't do any good anyway. It would probably be rather like trying to teach a pig how to do calculus.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 06:27 AM

I watch my diet very carefully nowadays, and I'm 77 lbs lighter than I was a few years ago. I seldom eat sausages, and never, ever eat cheap, mass-produced sausages - the southern softies can have those shitty things - I only eat good-quality bangers made by local butchers. As I eat them maybe three or four times a year only, I don't feel under any threat from the Toffs of Eton, or Toffs of any other public-school for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 07:04 AM

A plague on all their houses.

Start by copying Iceland. Put all the bankers and politicians in prison.
I believe they're back in the black now they've done that - even if not wealthy again.

I agree with most of what John McK's said - a steeply ramped tax system and less VAT would help the many at the expense of the few. And while I'm on - if the minimum wage is that - the minimum necessary to live (exist?) on - why is it taxed?

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 07:05 AM

PS Make mine Cumberland.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,BrendanB.
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 08:13 AM

Many here may find the polices of UKIP distasteful, but according to media polls, support for them and their policies are rising at a dramatic rate. Cameron admits that immigration will be high on the priority of all parties during the next election. It is a concerning matter when you consider Bulgaria and Romania receive full EEC status this year.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Musket
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 10:08 AM

Support for them based on soundbite quotes and grinning at a camera I can understand. Support for their policies has to be on the basis of not having read them surely? I sincerely hope that whatever a voter's politics, whatever a voter's views, they have no policies that are either costed or treat all UK citizens equally. Neither makes them capable of running a government / whelk stall.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 11:12 AM

Having to agree with Musket here. Cor blimey guv'nor.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 04:21 AM

'if the minimum wage is that - the minimum necessary to live (exist?) on - why is it taxed?'

It's only taxed if the recipient works sufficient hours to bring their earnings above the personal tax allowance. If they don't reach that threshold, which for tax year 2013/4 is £9,440, they don't pay tax.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 12:41 PM

Yeah, guest, but 40 hours at 6.19 per hour, 50 weeks of the year (ie a full time job) is 12380.00.UK pounds

Which is taxed. And that's the minimum wage needed to live on according to the govvy. Not the acceptable living wage which is 3k or so higher.

The tax threshold should be at least 12380.10 . My gripe stands.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 12:54 PM

I was the unnamed guest, forgot to reset my cookie.

"Yeah, guest, but 40 hours at 6.19 per hour, 50 weeks of the year (ie a full time job) is 12380.00.UK pounds

Which is taxed. "

No. Only the difference between £9,440 and £12,380 is taxed. The first £9,440 is free of tax (assuming the standard personal tax allowance applies).

I don't disagree with your argument that the minimum wage is inadequate, I'm just making the point that your original premise that the minimum wage is taxed is not quite correct, and that only part of it is taxed, if at all.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 08:53 PM

I suppose you can argue it either way. You can say people are taxed on their full income, but there are tax allowances that get taken off that, including one currently for £9440 for the first bit of income, or you can say that you are only taxed on the income over. And above £9440. It comes to the same thing.

One thing that does get blurred is the fact that when politicians in the present government preen themselves on taking people out of tax by raising the tax floor, as a counter to other cuts aimed at the poorest, that tax cut goes to everyone, including the very richest. If you didn't earn enough to pay tax at all, of course, none of that tax cut comes your way, while the benefit cuts certainly do. Most of any income tax cut is always going to go to people earning well above the new tax threshold.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 02:43 AM

Absolutely correct, McG, the 'taking x number of people out of tax' ruse is one that's been used by successive governments in an attempt to appear to be looking after the poor, but which has absolutely no benefit whatsoever for the poorest - those whose income is so low they don't pay tax anyway.

On a parallel with Wolfhound person's point above, it drives me nuts that I have to pay tax on my state pension - a clear case of the state giving with one hand and taking with the other! WTF? I paid tax in the form of national insurance for 49 years to build up a fund for my retirement, which they then tax again when I start to draw on it! Again I say, WTF?

Whatever happened to the basic principle of 'no double-taxation'?

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 02:45 AM

Maybe I should make those bastards pay me in sausages - they'd have a problem trying to tax those!   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 03:23 AM

Yes they can. VAT if it is sold hot. Tote tax if it contains traces of Shergar.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 03:29 AM

They'll do what they're doing here...start to 'co-operate' merge, and become the across the pond chapter of the New World Order....like it was all a bright new idea! New currency, and even a new form of money and financial transactions, new laws, new everything that will also suppress the people from ever being able to do a damn thing about it.

Me??..I'm just going to keep playing and composing.....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 04:02 AM

Not just state pension.
You save money out of your taxed income and put it into a pension fund, and they tax it again when you draw it out!

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 04:17 AM

Surely you get tax relief on pension contributions, don't you? Within limits. If so, private pension saving is treated more favourably than state pension saving.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 05:23 AM

"Not just state pension.
You save money out of your taxed income and put it into a pension fund, and they tax it again when you draw it out!"

Nope, not so. Your fund contributions are subject to tax relief, either by netting against the amount you pay in to the fund or by an increase to your tax coding. So you're only taxed once, i.e. when you draw out.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 01:42 PM

""Whatever happened to the basic principle of 'no double-taxation'?""

It never has existed is the short answer.

If you buy anything which is VAT rated (or purchase tax previously), you are paying a second tax on already taxed income.

If you drive a car you have for years been paying VAT on fuel duty, a double tax.

And if you save your pennies and leave more than a pittance when you pop your clogs, there are death duties on all that money on which you paid income tax, and tax on the interest accrued, a triple tax.

What basic principle?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 01:53 PM

As we are talking political parties. Surely the question is not how they raise taxes but how they spend it?

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 02:13 PM

It was a rhetorical question, Don, with more than just a touch of irony! :-)

Musket, there are two questions - both how they raise taxes and how they spend them - surely?

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 02:32 PM

Surely you get tax relief on pension contributions, don't you? Within limits. If so, private pension saving is treated more favourably than state pension saving.

That "surely" mightily if you know your way round the system, like an accountant, or perhaps a lawyer. But most people, including me, haven't the faintest idea of how tax allowances and exemptions work. I suspect that most people could avoid any amount of tax if they knew all the nooks and crannies and fiddles that the rich use.

Here is a link to lovely. George Osborne advising people how to bleed the system - that was when he was in opposition of course < a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjBec3fpBI&feature=player_embedded"> What a lovely man!

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 02:48 PM

Granted. But you raise it in order to fund your ideas. The ideas are there to spend it.

Just a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 03:36 PM

That blue clicky wasn't blue. This one should be a bit better - look at him sniggering about how "there are some pretty clever financial products" that he really shouldn't be telling ordinary people about. This was in 2009 - after the time that other "pretty clever financial products" had brought the world to its knees.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 04:05 PM

Actually I had another look - the date on which Osborne was saying that, with such a roguish giggle as he talked about the "pretty clever financial products", was in fact 15 May 2003.

That was at a time when his crooked friends in the City were still wrecking the place without being unmasked, and the Tories were crying out for still more deregulation of the financial casino. (And of course they were still swearing blind that no Tory government would ever cut benerfits or public services.)

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 07:40 PM

Well said Mr Mcgrath....but we must not diminish the work of Messrs Blair and Brown in continuing the destruction.

In reality, "clever financial products" were all we had in the locker to keep this crazy economic and social system staggering on into a credit wilderness,

Politicians of all "brands" are simply tools...Marx said that this system would destroy itself....its is the natural progression of a system built on greed and financial inequality.

The strange thing is how long it took to come about, and the horror is what is to become of those who served it.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 08:36 PM

I wouldn't dream of trying to diminish the work of New Labour in carrying on the Tory project for all those years, and preparing the way for the return of the Tory nightmare.

While I detest the Tories and despise the LibDems I despair for Labour.

But there is something particularly disgusting about the way the present shower have set out to demonise vulnerable people and to stir up a yob mob against "shirkers and cheats" - and at the same time they are themselves the worst cheats of all.

Not just in big ways, in shabby petty ways, as demonstrated in that clip - you only even become liable for inheritance tax if your estate comes to a very considerable sum. And only then if you aren't crafty enough to fiddle your way out of paying it, and to rip-off the state for the kind of benefits that are now being cut to pieces, because you have conned them you are poor.

And we should not forget that last year George Osborne, a millionaire, got caught travelling in a First Class compartment with a Second Class ticket. A well-heeled oik.

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Mar 13 - 03:38 AM

"That "surely" mightily if you know your way round the system, like an accountant, or perhaps a lawyer. But most people, including me, haven't the faintest idea of how tax allowances and exemptions work. I suspect that most people could avoid any amount of tax if they knew all the nooks and crannies and fiddles that the rich use."

Not really, Kevin. If you're paying in to an occupational pension scheme, or even a personal scheme, your employers or the brokers will have taken care of the tax-relief aspect, either by notifying HMRC of your entitlement to tax relief on your contributions, or by reducing the amount you actually pay in each pay-period by the tax relief amount, whilst the scheme providers credit your account with the full, un-reduced, contribution.

There's no need for Mr. Average-Contributor to know "all the nooks and crannies and fiddles" in respect of tax-relief on contributions to a pension scheme, that's what those accountants you mentioned are for. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: UK political parties for oblivion?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 16 Mar 13 - 06:18 AM

The thread says UK political parties but so far the post seem only to deal with England. The Conservative and Liberal parties have all but disappeared already from Scotland, and as far as sausages go remember Burns:

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!