General News UK Conservative Party Win Outright Majority

What about people who have to claim welfare to survive because they lost their jobs?

I have worked in the charitable sector. I have dealt with people, highly qualified hard working people, who have lost their jobs and through no fault of their own been unable to get any welfare, in part due to these cuts. Some of these people have are so desperate they are suicidal, and don't tell me otherwise because I have dealt with them.

 

I'm wary of this result. Firstly having such a slender majority Cameron could find himself under much greater pressure from his backbenchers on the right.

On welfare, I still don't think they've specified that £12bn in welfare cuts, which pretty much any expert who's looked at the matter thinks will probably have to come from reducing child benefit, introducing tougher fit-to-work tests, increased bedroom tax... basically things which were too unsavoury to mention in an election campaign. Plus there's the 900,000 food bank users and the slow recovery (apparently slowest in 100 years) which doesn't help the govt's case. Unless it was a political tactic by Osborne to overstate it, then this issue doesn't look very appealing under this government.

On taxes Foz, although the richest do pay the most income tax, income tax is only part of the picture. Overall, the bottom 10% pay 43% of their income in tax while the top 10% pay 35%. So as a proportion of income the rich actually do pay less.

We'll also have to see how Cameron handles Scotland. To be fair to him, he did reach out to Scotland and the other countries in his acceptance speech, which hopefully indicates an inclusive approach that can go some way to mending the rift that's now developed. He will need to be very careful though, and I hope he stops fanning the fire when it comes to English vs. Scottish nationalism like he did a bit in the election campaign. On the EU, well we're now consigned to two years of debate on the referendum, and considering the amount of Eurosceptics in his party and the immense difficulty he'll have reforming the EU, we could be heading out in two years.

We'll have to see, I think I would've preferred another Con-Lib coalition to an outright but small Tory majority.

 

I support the Tories overall, especially Cameron, in getting the overall economy out of debt. However, this tax rate for the rich is even lower than ours. I certainly wouldn't support cutting it.

Can you elaborate on what these terms are?

It's a population numbers game. You have a much larger population, so they pay more due to sheer volume.

Why do so many over there embrace the EU? It's more government regulation and interference. I don't understand the position of those in the UK on this. I would hate the idea of having a North American body telling the U.S. and Canada what to do.

 

The Tories will find it incredibly hard to win in 2020. The upcoming parliament will still be austerity-focused, and there will probably be another small recession around 2017/2018 - growth is already slowing down. Labour need to regroup, and capitalise on that when the time comes, hopefully with a new leader.

British people are not as averse to 'government interference' as Americans. That whole 'big government' argument doesn't really work here.

 

I can't believe people still believe in this fucking system. Labor sucks, the Cons are a bunch of xenophobic trolls with social darwinism as their religion, playing around with their little graphs, shifting the demand curve to the right to make all problems go away. Labor does that too, of course, but are less xenophobic.

No matter the election result, austerity will stay firmly in place, draining the country's welfare until the bankers etc. are satisfied.

 

The bottom paying 43% of their income vs 35% for the top decile is not a "population numbers game" as you've presented. They are the same amount of population, and the bottom 10% has a higher effective tax rate.

 

So fit-to-work tests (I think they're also known as work capability assessments) are basically tests for disabled people to conclude whether they're able-bodied enough to work and so how much benefit they're eligible for. However the tests have elicited more than a bit of outrage as they've been unreasonably harsh, leading to people who weren't really work-fit or borderline being designated as work fit and having benefits impacted. The private firm Atos who were contracted to perform these have sought to end their contracts early under pressure over the quality of their work on fit-to-work tests.

The bedroom tax targets spare rooms for council or housing association tenants. So, if you're living in a council house and have a room which is deemed to be surplus to requirements (a spare bedroom), your housing benefit is limited/reduced. This was one of the most controversial measures of the last government, as the people it hits find it incredibly difficult to find a new home, especially because they're council housing tenants and don't have much buying power and the housing market here is tough. So it's made many people's situations less secure, and most would say it's pretty needless too. I hope it gets repealed.

EU is divisive here. It's true that it involves regulation, although from a foreign policy perspective it's advantageous to Britain, as having a clearly co-ordinated and united European entity with Britain at its centre gives Britain more of a voice in steering international policy. Also, cross-border cooperation on issues such as the environment and terrorism is easier in a framework such as the EU. I'm not in principle opposed to a referendum, but right now EU leaders have seriously toughened their line on reform and Cameron looks like he has a mountain to climb if he's to get an EU he could campaign in the affirmative for. Which is why a referendum in 2017 could turn out to be too soon, and also it will be a deeply divisive political issue in a climate of many other deeply divisive issues such as Scotland.

 

I hope so. I truly hope so. The causes of the financial crash are still there, so a small recession would be a lot better than a (fake) boom+real crash (2008 could have absolutely destroyed the global economy if there hadn't been government intervention).

-Management not truly understanding what their bank employees actually do.
-Management not understanding the exotic financial products their employees come up with.
-High job turn-over in the financial sector, giving a massive push to people to make profit at the cost of taking high risks (increased with those exotic financial products).
-Accountants and Credit rating agencies still being paid by the ones they should check.
-Extra rules since 2008 didn't actually solve stuff, but instead increased complexity.

 

How do they account for psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia etc.?

So, you can be taxed more for having a spare office room as a single person in a two bedroom home even if you don't rent the room out? Insane.

Whether it works or not, it certainly takes away from national sovereignty. You are letting leaders from other countries decide what goes on in yours!

 

Britain needs free trade with the rest of the EU. 50% of their current trade is with the EU and no free trade would ruin their financial sector (That's about 700.000 highly paid jobs in London). While they are part of the EU, they have influence on the policies of the EU.

If they were not part of the EU, they'd have to sign an association agreement with the EU to gain free trade. Part of this association agreement would be confirming to quite a lot of EU laws to ensure fair competition within the EU. Because they wouldn't be a part of the EU they don't have influence on those laws.

So a Britain not in the EU would still get those European laws, but not the power to change those laws.

 

I agree, I think the only way is up for Labour. Even if the Tories successfully tackle the defecit they are going to tied with an image of austerity, Labour should be able to use that to their advantage in 2020 - let the conservatives make all the brutal budget cuts and difficult decisions, then sweep in with hope and a shiny new leader.

Plus Scotland are likely to leave so that is another issue for the conservatives to contend with.

I agree with your other comment in the other thread though - Scotland have shot themselves in the foot with their voting so any claims of a "lack of representation in government" are ridiculous...it is their own doing. That is what you get for voting for a nationalist party only standing in 59 of 650 seats (i.e a party who cannot win a majority and can only ever "be in government" on the off-chance a coalition is required). They've made their bed, time to lie in it.

 

I don't think they take them seriously enough, as the fit-to-work tests also designate thousands of people who have mental health disorders as fit for work also. I looked at a campaign page and it turns out courts/judges have ruled that fit-to-work assessments as they are are unfair and put people with mental health problems at a disadvantage. So they appear to test psychological issues, but not adequately.

 

My understanding of the rules are that if you are in receipt of housing benefit (a government "welfare" benefit paid due to low income) and in a home deemed surplus in size and/or are in social housing that is deemed surplus in size your housing benefits will be cut*. I think that is about right (feel free to correct me if I'm far off anyone!)

The idea on paper is to discourage people from claiming housing benefit when they do not really need it (when they could downsize to a smaller and cheaper home) and to ensure people aren't under-occupying valuable local authority housing stock (i.e. a couple living in a four bed council house when a family is in need of that accommodation).

In theory it makes sense (as housing benefit is paid to way too many people, and there is a distinct lack of social housing available). HOWEVER, I understand that in practice this rule is highly unfair - disproportionately affecting the disabled and those in genuine need. Plus "downsizing" is not always practically possible: moving home is difficult in this market (due to people stuck in chains and the lack of buyers), costs are high, and many home-owners are trapped in negative equity.

There is also the argument that with social housing it should be up to the local authority to monitor stocks and move people when necessary - residents should not be penalised for being placed in housing surplus to their needs.

*Note that if you are a private resident who is not claiming housing benefit you would be unaffected by this. It is not a "tax" per se, instead a reduction in welfare support - so if you aren't claiming any benefits, there is nothing to be reduced.

 

Because growth is cyclical and most experts agree that there will probably be a mild recession in the near future. Nothing excessive - but probably enough to cost the Tories their votes.

 

True. I guess you all don't have section 8 housing over there or something similar.

 

Haha, no.

Britain: For the Love of God, Please Stop David Cameron | Benjamin Studebaker

The title might be (very) subjective, but there are some interesting charts about the British economy and the influence of the Conservative party in there.

 

Ultimately I think it's a victory for the economy. We need a government that has the balls to make cuts and reduce the deficit. We've had the years of Labour racking up debt and it didn't end well. Labour claimed they were going to cut the deficit but I think they would just mess about and reduce it too slowly. Also the last government actually did a good job. If you compare us to the rest of Europe we are actually doing quite well.

The Conservatives aren't perfect with tax cuts for the rich and an EU referendum. But I think that the UK doesn't need a left wing party at the moment. We haven't got the money to implement left wing policies. The NHS will be fine, the tories plan to increase it's spending anyway.

I think Scotland needs to go now. They want to spend the rest of the UK's money and plunge us all into debt. I want to see a United Kingdom but I'm afraid Scotland will probably put the rest of the UK in an unacceptable position.

---------- Post added 8th May 2015 at 11:06 PM ----------

Having read though that article it assumes that things would have be better with labour in charge with just an linear extrapolation. Also it doesn't take into account that we have to cut the deficit. We can't keep relying on Government spending to prop up our economy. It may hurt in the short term but in the long term it will allow for the private sector to move in and for the government to be more stable in the future.

I don't argue that short term growth would have been higher if Cameron had just spent but we can't do that anymore. Just look at Greece, that country is close to collapse.