The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[SNova]

Cuts have saved nothing. They have borrowed more in their 5 years than the last 5 years if the previous Labour government. Don't let them convince you they are good for the economy; they are disastrous.

The national debt is the most worrying part.

 

[Jxg]

This is the point though, the poor have the raw end of the deal for some reason. They would never dream of raising taxes for the rich, it's all targeted at the vulnerable.

Also, a lot of the changes have been ideological. The change in benefits (to the universal credit and the new testing systems for disability allowance) has cost the country money rather than saved money, only with more damning consequences for those in desperate need.

Spending is actually up over the last 5 years compared with the government which preceded it, so I have no idea where the Tories get their 'we are tough, but we've cut the deficit' rhetoric from - they haven't.

[citation needed]

 

[Toffeelover]

How many new contracts have been given to private companies in the NHS?

If the housing rules being too lax means we're not turfing families with disabled children out of their homes then that's fine by me.

Do you honestly believe these tuition fees are helping students from poorer backgrounds? It's unbelievable that before people have even earned a penny they have £30k worth of debt hanging over them.

I'm nowhere near a staunch Labour supporter. I just can't stand the Tory ideology.

Fine Danny, but I am not going to do the research for you on the PFIs. One thing I will say about the NHS and where I now live. I live in Burnley, our A&E was shut down. There were hundreds marching in protest including the then MP Kitty Usher. But when it got to parliament what did she vote for?______ closure. Thanks to Jack Straw the MP for BLackburn, the main Hospital was set up in his constituency which is at the very wstern end of the East Lancs area. If you are in need of emergency treatment and live in Colne it can take 45 minutes to get from your home to the Hospital. Thankfully a great deal has been done in Burnley to restore much to Burnley Hos[pital by the current Lib Dem MP.

As for the housing benefit see the post by Whistlin' Dixie! As for the other items like tuition fees and energy price freezes these will also be of great benefit to the rich.

 

[dannyboy]

We've been over tuition fees. People don't pay them until they are earning a certain amount. So if you stay poor you'll never have to pay them back. I don't get how people can say it stops poor people from attending uni.

Because the last thing I'd want to be doing as someone from a poor family is throwing myself into so much debt at a young age.

I don't like money entering the equation where education is concerned.

 

[Toffeelover]

The national debt is the most worrying part.

Under the current lot the deficit as a % of GDP has been halved from what it was in 2010.

 

[Toffeelover]

Because the last thing I'd want to be doing as someone from a poor family is throwing myself into so much debt at a young age.

I don't like money entering the equation where education is concerned.

Education does need better funding and that is some thing the Lib DEms are pushing. You are right Danny, education is the seedcorn of the Countries future.

 

[SNova]

Because the last thing I'd want to be doing as someone from a poor family is throwing myself into so much debt at a young age.

I don't like money entering the equation where education is concerned.

But they wouldn't be paying it off until they were earning a higher wage anyway. I don't see how this affects the poor 'more'.

Under the current lot the deficit as a % of GDP has been halved from what it was in 2010.

National debt and deficit are two different things.

 

[Deleted member 28206]

 

[Groucho]

Under the current lot the deficit as a % of GDP has been halved from what it was in 2010.

But the debt has risen dramatically.

They're all as bad as each other.

 

[Toffeelover]

But they wouldn't be paying it off until they were earning a higher wage anyway. I don't see how this affects the poor 'more'.



National debt and deficit are two different things.

Beg pardon you are right. But to get at National debt do we not need to get rid of the deficit and get into surplus?

 

[bring the ghost on]

[citation needed]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/05/welfare-reform-waste-duncan-smith-universal-credit

 

[Jxg]

National debt and deficit are two different things.

The previous 13 year Labour government increased the national debt by about £480 billion. Until the deficit is eradicated, the national debt will not go down. They go absolutely hand in hand. Come on, this is simple stuff.

 

[Toffeelover]

Like the cheese butty with pickle but not with a topping of feline.

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

Under the current lot the deficit as a % of GDP has been halved from what it was in 2010.

Marvellous! And wern't we told it'd be done away with by now? (Or was that the debt - which is still there too?)

Still, when you've got people stacking shelves for their dole, and others being deprived of theirs for the most trivial of reasons, then I suppose that helps towards GDP eh?

 

[dannyboy]

But they wouldn't be paying it off until they were earning a higher wage anyway. I don't see how this affects the poor 'more'.

People will be paying these debts off for the rest of their lives. If you don't think it's a huge choice to make for a kid from a council estate compared to someone from an upper middle class family in leafy suburbia then I think you're being extremely short sighted.