Conservatives

[Chie]

I stand corrected with regard to your voluntary work; although the "roof over your head" does encompass mortgage payments, council tax, gas, electricity, telephone/internet, possibly a TV subscription and of course the beloved TV Licence. And food, cleaning products, clothing and so on.

I'm not suggesting you don't contribute to some or all of these - more that within the context of how bloomin' expensive it is to merely pay one's bills, those things tend to cloud one's view on what a "living wage" is.

I've bought all my food and things ever since I started earning, right down to the bar of soap that I use. There's no mortgage. You're right on the bills though but I help out in other ways, as I'm still paying off the debts I accrued whilst living independently.

My problem with the minimum wage is that the annual increase in the minimum wage has the effect of pushing up wages in general. As the min wage normally increases above inflation, it also makes it particularly expensive for small businesses to employ staff. So all I'm saying is that the minimum wage should be frozen for a few years and be linked to the consumer prices index thereafter. It's not a Tory policy as far as I'm aware, but I'm hopeful that they'll decide to do something about it.

[Gavin Scott]

My problem with the minimum wage is that the annual increase in the minimum wage has the effect of pushing up wages in general. As the min wage normally increases above inflation, it also makes it particularly expensive for small businesses to employ staff. So all I'm saying is that the minimum wage should be frozen for a few years and be linked to the consumer prices index thereafter. It's not a Tory policy as far as I'm aware, but I'm hopeful that they'll decide to do something about it.

Yes, you've made the point several times that minimum wage makes it expensive for businesses to employ staff.

However, the percentage of workers on or around minimum wage is low (and I'll find the figure to back this up), in comparison to the majority of the workforce.

What a minimum wage certainly does do is to increase the standard of living for the poorest in society; stimulates greater consumption and spending for those people and decreases the burden on Government to supplement (or "top up") those on meagre incomes.

On the last point - why should my tax pounds pay for benefit top ups for the lowest paid, when those employers gain the benefits of a workforce being paid low wages?

I mentioned the other day the huge (I mean *huge*) increase in small and medium sized enterprises in the UK.

There was a suggestion some years back that a minimum wage in Britain would finish off business here - and that simply didn't pan out - so in light of the evidence you can't really argue that point.

[marksi]

Now Cameron has decided it would be good to disadvantage those who aren't married. Cheers.

(This is a particularly touchy subject for me as here in Northern Ireland I get no single person's discount on the rates that is applied to the similar charge in England, Scotland and Wales because our politicians decided it would be too hard to implement; as a result I pay the same as a house with four adults in it.)

[Chie]

The marriage tax break isn't something I can agree with either. In fact, it's rather embarrassing.

The idea that a government of any colour will introduce a banking levy and the banks will readily pay it out of their own pockets is a fallacy anyway. They'll up their consumer charges to cover the extra cost, meaning the public will pay for it by proxy. Ergo a banking levy is just another way to tax the public by stealth without actually having to increase taxes.

On to opinion polls, and much is being made of the significant 10-point lead the Tories need to win the election outright, but this really good website (scroll down) hints that, at the moment, the Conservative lead is generally widening to roughly the required level. Several polls suggested that the Tories had a lead of 16 points as recently as January. The last time Labour had a consistent lead over the Tories was in September 2007. When it comes to the crunch, I think the Conservatives will get at least enough votes to form a minority government, which would be good all round because although they would be the government, their extremely small majority would give Labour, the Lib Dems and others combined an almost equal influence over voting in the House of Commons.

[barcode]

Will we see the Lib dems asking for PR to come along?

you could be on to something Chile, Tory have a minority government and gone for about a year? then call another election I dare say May 2011, same day Scottish, wales, and councils.

If there people dont like it there can kick them out, if there like what there doing there keep them in with a bigger swing

[Gavin Scott]

Interesting manifesto.

One way to cut all those public sector costs - why not have the public running the schools, the police - and if they find a reason to they can sack their MP and save a few bucks there too.

Anyway, someone on my friendface has just posted this on their wall.

Naturally I think its terribly unfair, but I'll go ahead and share it anyway.

[Chie]

I think it's funny. I imagine The Chairman went off and did something similar after this:



He directed the same vacantly scornful look of hopeless disdain towards Jon Snow at the end of an interview last night, although not quite as menacingly as he did with Adam Boulton.

Can't wait to see him on the 7th of May - 'After everything I've done for this country and this is how you repay me?! The great Joseph Stalin would have taken you out and fucking SHOT the lot of you, you ungrateful bastards!' Before being carried away on all four limbs by a mental health crisis team.

[Pete]

Before being carried away on all four limbs by a mental health crisis team.

and at this rate I doubt he'll be the only one.

Meanwhile the Tories managed their usual trick today of tempting me with "we'll get rid of contactpoint and id cards" an then ruining it all again with "lets top slice the licence fee, give ofcom control [even though they were going to scrap ofcom a few months back] and let the NAO look at its expenses so the Mail can cream itself over everything and ruin stuff".

[Alexia]

A rather wide-ranging poll from Populus/Times.

Quick - read it while it's still free. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/p ... 096632.ece

Key points:

Poll translates to 300 Labour seats, 264 Tories, 54 Liberals
Poll shows most are hoping for hung parliament
More than two fifths (43 per cent), including 50 per cent of women, say “none of the parties”, or “don’t know”, when asked which party is putting across a convincing cases to voters.
More Tories (70 per cent) than Labour voters ( 57 per cent) expect their leader to win.

[barcode]

I be honest I think most people want a Hung alimentary and there can not trust anyone right now.

and Gavin, hilter and the Edinburgh trams was funnier

[James H]

But does anyone in the real world actually know what a hung parliament really entails?

A lot of people will have heard that exact phrase bandied about for the past few months as though it was the worst thing in the world, and now they're believing the pundits who are screaming that a hung parliament may be beneficial... but do the majority of the electorate actually understand the issues that are being put forward here?

There are some who seem to believe that any form of hung parliament would be a dream coalition where two parties get along in harmony, which is simply not the case!