Woodstock Jag

sigesige00 - just an idea Is it impossible to consider getting better wind-ups? It would be funnier and the forum would be better for it. Is it out-of-question?

I defend on merit, not on partisan alignment. And the Unions don't? Except rape and burglary are illegal. Utilising tax loopholes not only isn't a criminal offence, but also doesn't invade personal liberty like rape or burglary. That is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. It falls to the state (and by proxy, the government) to match what they morally expect in terms of taxation from classes of individual by enshrining it in law through their methods, rates and exemptions. What you are effectively suggesting is that if the state sets a low rate of corporation tax, businesses are morally bound to arbitrarily add a couple of zeros onto their VAT payments to the treasury. Alternatively, you are suggesting that because someone has chosen to build an extension to their house, making it effectively in a higher band if the Council were to rerate it, they are morally bound to send an extra cheque to the local Council office paying the extra £100 or whatever even though the Council hasn't got round to making it officially a different band. That's simply preposterous, and people should be fully entitled to act as they please so long as it is in accordance with the laws and codes of conduct by which they are bound. Ashcroft is now domiciled and paying all the tax he is legally bound to pay! The other two aren't breaking the law, so I don't see anything wrong with them offering their expertise and advice about public finances. What moral authority did the Labour front bench have to say what we can and can't afford when they were among the worst of the swindlers in the expenses scandal?

He never said that.

Marc Twaddle scores for Falkirk...

It's not "my" party. I am not a member of the Conservative Party and did not vote for them at the General Election. It's not "directed" by either Ashcroft or Green. It's unfair to single-out the Tories when Labour were the ones with the power to make the law match the the moral obligation. They aren't "squeezing the poorest for as much as they can"; they are examining the horrendous state of the public finances to see where they can and can't afford to sustain spending.

What do you mean by "prerogative to pay tax"? A prerogative is a right. I do believe that all those in our legislature should be subject to UK Tax Law. It's not their fault if the law, until very recently, didn't require them to be domiciled for tax purposes in Britain. As I stress (and I'll repeat it again) Ashcroft HAS given up his non-domiciled status to remain in the legislature in light of the change in the law to require all those in the legislature to be domiciled in the UK. That is the end of the matter and I really don't see what more can be said or done. If you are complaining about the tax he didn't pay before this law came in, the people you should be complaining about are Labour, who failed to change the tax law in the best part of a decade after they became aware that Ashcroft had been nominated for a peerage by then Tory leader William Hague.

I don't question that both have been ruthless and made the most of the loop-holes in our tax system, but that's entirely their prerogative, and the government of the day's fault for letting them slip through the net.

Are you imputing criminality? That's a dangerous path to go down... As far as I'm concerned, his behaviour is not substantially different from (say) the Trades Unions bankrolling the Labour Party, with countless examples of people being signed-up automatically to the political levy regardless of their political persuasion, having to pick up on it and specifically ask to be withdrawn from it to stop them getting their grubby mits on their money. Oh, and while we're talking about hypocrisy with respect to the vulnerable, can TU leaders really claim to represent their members while on six figure pay-packets? Lord Ashcroft has given up his non-dom status. He now pays tax. That is the end of it.

Remind me again which party had the power to crack down on this in the last 13 years and didn't even try? Oh come on stop this nonsense. Anyone who thinks these sort of changes wouldn't be happening under Labour are completely deluded. Why else were they themselves already planning increases to the retirement age pre-election, which most observers thought weren't going far enough to balance the books. What rubbish. NHS front-line services are being ring-fenced: something even Labour didn't guarantee. As for Ashcroft: Firstly he's given up his non-dom status, and does pay tax. Secondly Labour did less than nothing in 13 years to crack down on non-domiciled tax loop-holes.

Let's hope they lay us out a victory on a plate...

The Guardian in February estimated the figure I gave based on another report. Either way, if you actually look at the article you cite in full... Either way, it doesn't suggest that this government is going to raise it beyond 67. What it does prove beyond all debate, though, is that with more people living longer we can't afford to continue to pay pensions to people from 65 at the current value. So what would you rather: we cut the state pension or raise the retirement age?

This is spot on. Incidentally, looks like Labour's Legacy is an even bigger structural debt than even the Tories are admitting: You have to draw the line somewhere and they just didn't!

From what I can gather since it was automated rather than done by drawing from a hat and cross referencing to members by page-number and line number, all they do is: Turn on a computer Run the lottery programme Click the button to carry out the draw And the winning members appear on the screen. Riveting viewing, I'm sure you'll agree!

The thing is as well, that controlling certain bank activity in respect of speculation is not as difficult to do, and it doesn't even need to be heavy handed, rather intelligent regulation to prevent it. Controlling things like bank charges is something none of them have been particularly good at, and it's harder to stop them finding new ways of passing on the burden than it is to stop them creating the burden in the first place. None of them come out with flying colours, but with Labour being the ones in power in the last 13 years, the blame rests more firmly at their door.

MP, you never fail to raise a smile!

No, I'm saying it's sensationalist nonsense to suggest that the government are somehow "enjoying" the suffering people face in light of cuts. What, exactly, were you talking about then? The government are looking at Universal Benefits, and looking to see if they can taper them off with respect to those who are on higher incomes! All of this stuff about "lower middle class families" (by which I presume you mean those earning under £40k per year, yes?) suffering as a result of changes to Child Benefit is a total non-sequitur. "Over time" being to 67 at some point within this Parliament and estimates that it will rise to 70 by about 2050. It's hardly as though the intervening 40 years won't be enough to turn efforts towards improving the life expectancy in Northern England and Scotland, is it? The big problem with teachers is less to do with teachers not retiring and more down to the obsession successive governments have had with reducing class sizes, and taking on too many people into teacher-training posts to try to meet the targets, before realising they hadn't the money to employ them all. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10761225 Big invention from me there... No it can't, because the methods of taxation that the state currently uses typically confer tangible infrastructural and service benefits on those who they tax and spread the burden across society, rather than simply punishing wealth creation. The tax is even called a "Robin Hood Tax" and that really says all you need to know about the motive behind it. The purpose of a "Robin Hood Tax" is to cream-off profits, therefore actually relies on the speculation which generates wealth rapidly continuing. If you want to stop speculative activity, you should approach it with, for example, a Tobin Tax. The way you make banks behave sensibly isn't to hit their profits, because they then pass the burden down to their customers. You have to use a combination of water-tight banking regulation and taxes aimed at deterring the activity, rather than assuming the benefit of it. The Banks made a profit in the last 6 months, but the state-owned ones in particular are forecast to make substantial losses again over the next year or so. As I said before, emphasis on the government's part in respect of bonuses should be to veto them as majority shareholders. They are by no means secure money-makers in the medium-term, and taxing them, as I said earlier, is robbing Peter to pay Paul for as long as we own a majority stake in them. Unemployment has to rise because the state can't afford to keep on as many people as it is currently, and small businesses can't afford to keep as many staff on, because their productivity has plummeted due to the lack of availability of secure credit. That's just a fact of life. It's not going to be pleasant, but within 2 years you will see business growing substantially again, and employment figures will be assisted considerably by placing lower corporation tax burdens on businesses, exempting new businesses from NI on the first few employees and delaying the employers' NI rise. The VAT increase is something that should have been done a long time ago. If you look across Europe, the vast majority of countries have had a static rate of VAT between 20 and 22%. Bear in mind that many essentials are VAT exempt, and the utilities are taxed at 5%, and won't be affected by the hike. What would make a much more meaningful difference than worrying about 2.5% VAT would be if the government applied more pressure on utilities companies to pass-on a greater proportion of their always increasing profits (unlike the banks, you'll note!) to their customers through lower electricity and gas bills. Of course they are, but where would we be without arm-chair politicians... It's been notoriously difficult to regulate to date. They pass it on in draconian overdraft charges, less lucrative interest rates to savers, and higher interest rates on borrowers (see why despite the BOE base rate being something like 1% most mortgages are well above 5%).

Not at all; it depends on the extent and timing. If you can withstand the short-term hit from cuts in spending, reducing the deficit in the process, it puts you on a more comfortable footing to borrow (where required) to stimulate growth in the long-term. Continuing to spend when your debt racks up is akin to using one credit card to pay off another; it only defers and worsens the problem. Economists couldn't be more divided about the effect of cutting spending commitments. If anything, they are suggesting that deficit reduction by spending cuts in countries with large structural deficits (such as ourselves) is slightly preferable. The predictions at the moment rate the chances of a double-dip recession still being improbable. The suggestion that Labour wouldn't have made just about as significant cuts, after Alistair Darling harping on about the deepest cuts since Margaret Thatcher, is laughable. I don't even see why people see less state as a bad thing. Labour presided over some of the most intolerable and draconian and illiberal aspects of our society in years: ID cards, biometric passports, excessive anti-Terror legislation, invasion of another country without the backing of the international community and more besides. The con Labour pulled was to mortgage our futures with PFI putting things off the books, instead of rationally increasing spending in-line with their means. They raised people's expectations as to what the state was capable well beyond that they could sustain. Short-term political benefit necessitating painful re-adjustment when things went wrong.

This is sensationalist nonsense. There is absolutely no good reason why any benefits whatsoever should be paid to a family earning more than £50k a year. They just don't need it. So far as I can see, phasing out Child Benefit for those on higher incomes makes perfect sense. Why, for example, does a family on £40k a year need £1760 or so being handed out to them by the government for simply having two children, when you could instead be paying families on £20k or less a year £3520? Which makes the bigger difference in averting poverty and suffering? Universal benefits are a total nonsense and they should all be means tested. The simple reason is we can't afford it. The benefits bill has gotten out of control, and the support we give to the vulnerable costs more than we're getting back in taxation as it is. I personally don't buy into the idea that people should be substantially assisted by the state to retire unless they are physically no longer able to work, anyway, and emphasis should shift towards a system where those wanting to retire before the age of (for example) 70 should be given tax incentives to save for the years up to the age of 70. I also don't know why you've said the government want people to work until they are 70+, because the plan is to raise the retirement age to 67 and to end compulsory redundancy at 65 in certain employment areas, so as to allow those who want to continue to work to do so whilst being able to afford the cost of support for the elderly. HOW MANY TIMES! They didn't cut anything from the UK Film Council! They abolished the body that was notorious for inefficiency relative to other film funding organisations, and are going to redirect the existing funding elsewhere. That's not cutting it! I didn't see Labour venturing this when they ploughed money into the banks, did you? Also, just placing a "Robin Hood tax" on speculative activity doesn't actually solve the problem. For one, it is legalised theft, with no clear proof of redistributive effect. Secondly, the figures they use correspond to the profits the Banks were making about 4 years ago: at the height of the boom (global banking profits 2006 were circa $788bn c.f. $120bn in 2008-09); in more turbulent economic circumstances, to raise the money they're claiming would be raised would be comparable to imposing a surplus corporation tax of somewhere between 50% and 350% on corporate activity, which not only would prove such a massive disincentive to banks that they would almost completely cease trading in Britain, but also because the state OWNS the banks, they're robbing Peter to pay Paul, by preventing the recovery of the banks and not getting the money back that they ploughed into it in the first place. What would be much more sensible would be to use the State's power as a majority shareholder to veto excessive bank bonuses to executives and agree a repayment plan on our investment at a substantial but not crippling rate of interest. The problem with people trying to say "tax the bankers boo hiss" is that it is precisely in the short term that that wouldn't work. What matters more just now is that if the UK can't manage its public sector debt, it will lose its AAA credit rating, meaning that in the medium to longer term it will be much more difficult to borrow to finance extraordinary public expenditure commitments. We've put the cart before the horse by spending more than we take in when times are good; we should be building up a surplus when times are good so that when times are bad we dip into that instead of creditors.

No, a better metaphor would be to say that they are axing 40% of their player budget because they made a big loss the previous season. It means that they then have to work off a smaller first team squad, and fight a lot harder to avoid relegation, but if they do, the very existence of the Club is sustained and they're a lot stronger for it. Simultaneously, we look for new revenue streams, by looking to see what we can offer other parties to incentivise reciprocal assistance (c.f. cutting corporation tax to boost business and overall tax receipts).

Sorry, BCG but that's just not what I'm saying at all and I find it deeply insulting that you're suggesting that. Public services don't exist to make money: they exist to serve the public. What that doesn't mean is that they should have a big blank unaccountable chequebook backing them. Government should not be spending more than it takes in in taxes; to deny that is to ignore the most basic rule of economics. It isn't about the needs of the business community being "more important" than public services; quite the opposite. They are mutually dependent. Unless the business community thrives, public services can't be funded. Therefore you have to tailor your fiscal policy to suit the former in order to sustain the funding in the long term of the latter. I think Lambies Lost Doo has perhaps overstated the bitter Labour element, but the sentiment is definitely prevalent. What the "don't cut" brigade's argument is tantamount to is "Thistle should buy Kenny Deuchar for £200k and we'll get promoted". Now having Kenny Deuchar would be great and getting promoted would be great, but if he's going to cost us £200k when we're already in debt and losing money, we're going to have to accept we can't afford the intrinsically good Kenny Deuchar, indeed if we want to bring anyone in we have to try to sell. As and when we're on a more stable financial footing, with spending down and revenues increasing over time, we can maybe think about signing up the next Kenny Deuchar when funds allow it, but for now we've got to reduce our debt.

Oh behave! The vast majority of the cuts they're looking at are in respect of making those who are better off less likely to be entitled to benefits designed to help the poorest. Are you seriously suggesting to me that families earning £50k a year need Child Benefit? They're not "abolishing 40% of the state"; they're making 40% cuts to meet deficit reduction targets. That's not the same thing at all. They said that "front-line services" in the NHS would be protected. That's not the same as saying that spending would not fall (although it's not actually falling; they're giving it a real-terms increase, but the precondition of that is that the NHS must also make savings to help protect those front-line services. An excellent place to start would be to reduce the ridiculously high numbers of NHS Managers and Development Strategists, who contribute very little but command salaries far in excess of the nurses and cleaners on the actual wards.

What do you think Labour would have done in 1979? Point caller? Large short-term job cuts now vs more and longer-term job cuts later. Propping up your economy with lots of public sector jobs just means money gets recycled rather than created. You need to look at the bigger picture to see why we can't afford to throw good money after bad. The Lib Dems didn't actually oppose the VAT rise. They didn't rule it out, but accused the other parties of failing to disclose it in their budgetary plans when it was so patently secretly planned by both Tory and Labour. Both Labour and Tories said "we presently have no plans to raise VAT" whereas the Lib Dems said "VAT increases haven't been budgeted for, but any change in rates of tax must reflect the economic conditions at that particular point in time". With respect to the timing of cuts, they've made perfectly clear that they've changed their minds as a result of the impact of the debt crisis on the Continent in and around the election, in addition to the discovery that the structural debt was several billion more substantial than Labour had been publicising.

It's not cracks. It's the in-laws who never liked each other in the first place squabbling. The grand-centre-right Civil Partnership will last the full 5 year term.

Politician in being a dick, shocker. That said, it could apply equally to both of them in the story.

It's all head in the sand stuff. Some of the cuts are ideological (the belief that less state interference is fundamentally good - see the scrapping of ID cards) but a lot of them are driven by necessity to rebalance public sector spending in such a way as it is sustainable in the long-term. Mediocre Pundit surmises it excellently. It's head in the sand stuff from all too many people, especially those on the left. Year on year the government spent more than it was taking-in in taxes, propping up schemes which weren't viable and wasting billions on PFIs, keeping them off the books to inflate their performance, making the children of people yet to be born pay for the cost of constructing hospitals before the turn of the century. No one is arguing that the state doesn't have a role in the welfare of its citizens. What is ultimately pretty clear, though, is that under Labour from 1999-2010 (they followed Tory spending plans in 1997 and 1998) they have consistently spent more than they've brought in. It's time to reassess what we can legitimately expect from the state. Of course there are going to be examples of what is seen as hypocritical spending, but no more so than if you had any other set of politicians in their place. What is important for jobs in the long-term, though, is that we have an economy that goes back to basics and grows sustainably; rather than what we have at the moment where people expect a never ending exponential improvement in standard of living. I also refute the idea that Trade Unions somehow properly represent the long-term interests of their workers any more. Take, for example, the threatened BAA strike, which in tough economic times would have detrimentally affected the company, and made workers go without a few days' wages when money is already tight, putting job security on the line. Only yesterday was it averted. The demand from the Union was that their members be paid part of a bonus for a target they didn't reach, and to get a pay rise (granted a real-terms small cut) while people across the private sector have being taking actual (c.f. real-terms) cuts, sometimes as substantial as 25% just to retain their jobs. This expectation that wages should always rise higher than inflation just doesn't stand up to any economic scrutiny at all, and is endemic of the attitudes held by people, not only of job entitlement but of a pre-requisite entitlement to a good standard of living. To address some of BCG's post though... Cut in corporation tax: who makes the economy grow? Answer: business. It's been established by many leading economists that a lower tax rate has the potential to yield a greater tax receipt, because business have greater means to take on more workers/lay-off fewer workers, improve productivity and ultimately make more money. Besides, I seem to recall that the cut in corporation tax actually applied to small and medium-sized businesses, alongside the employers' NI deferred increase and NI exemption for the first few staff on the payroll. This isn't about protecting big business, but growing new ones and restoring economic prosperity and jobs in the medium to long-term rather than throwing more good money after bad to protect unsustainable jobs just now. Bankers' Bonuses: I didn't see Labour do anything of note to stop these bonuses. Winter Fuel Payments: no cuts have been confirmed, and raising the age of eligibility is, at the moment, only one of the options being considered. We have to ask ourselves why should the state be providing subsidies to people of working age, when the intention of the subsidy should be to mitigate the problems people unable to work face of paying a basic utility bill? Child Benefit: the cuts are applying to the upper-bracket. Families earning over £40k a year frankly don't need Child Benefit. That money would be much better spent targeted at those earning about half of that, of which there are far more. University Cuts: 35% over 4 years, it should be pointed out. My own view is that too many people go to University already, and that a greater emphasis should be on vocational courses taught by College based institutions. The cut isn't exactly just an efficiency saving, but if it means Universities offer fewer places, I'm all for it. Far too many people going to Uni and either dropping out or getting qualifications that serve them no benefit in the future jobs market. Scrapping Council funding for new transport/housing/education projects: you can blame the PFI cash-cows that New Labour backed for these no longer being affordable. Abolition of the UK Film Council and the Museums Archive Council: Funding to continue through other bodies, we've discussed this already. Jets/Tanks/Warships to be sacrificed in favour of the white elephant that is Trident: Not that Labour would have done anything different, given they too wanted a spending review but were also planning to keep Trident out of the considerations. Building Schools For The Future project scrapped: again, see the PFI waste. 1300 Community Playgrounds abandoned: We're broke. There's no value in wasting public money on swings and see-saws. I could go on, but all of the things you brought up point to the same conclusion: Labour spent too much when the times were good, instead of using economic growth as a means to reduce national debt and cushion the suffering whenever a downturn arises. We ran up annual fiscal deficits when times were good, on: 1) vanity projects 2) infrastructure projects which were poor value for money 3) a benefits system that was barely economically viable in the good times, let alone in circumstances of higher unemployment and an ageing population. Labour were completely disingenuous in their attitude towards public spending: indeed until about a year ago, Gordon Brown was denying that there would be real-term public spending cuts if they won the election! Alistair Darling was the only front-bench figure to emerge with even a whiff of credit, for admitting that the Treasury had overreached itself, and that cuts were going to have to be deeper than those under Margaret Thatcher if we were to set ourselves back on a decent economic footing again. What Labour (and to be fair, all the parties) failed to do during the election was admit exactly where the axe was going to fall. At least now that the Tories and Lib Dems are in power, they're showing where they're going to have to come, whilst Labour has actually regressed on its line when it was in government by attacking every cut in sight, refusing to look at the bigger economic picture. There are two related issues the coalition are trying to deal with: public spending versus tax income; and the attitudes of expectation we show towards the state. I can see substantial comparisons between the situation of the country now and the financial situation of a lot of Scottish football Clubs. When you are spending more than you are taking in, you simply have to spend less, even if it means that in the short-term the performance output drops. The danger of not living within your means in the long-term is far more devastating, with widespread suffering being even worse. The choice is simple: lance the boil now or let it grow and lance it later, when it will be much, much more painful.