UK - Election 2015

[lonepinealex]

As brought into being by the English Civil War, an uprising of the people.


First, as someone said, it's too early to say and second, for millions, nay billions probably, liberal capitalism means grinding poverty, slum dwelling, poor health and poor or no education. Oh sure, in the long run everybody will be better off but:

A in the long run we'll all be dead (Keynes) and
B liberal capitalism has already had a long run (anglolawyer)

Dudalb says lefties distrust the common people as though their true champions are the thieving, tax-dodging, devil-take-the-hindmost, lobbying, money-laundering, polluting, exploiting, lying capitalists. ROFLLMAO.

A rising tide lifts all boats remember?

Only, what if not everyone's actually in a boat, let alone the same boat (cf David Cameron)? Some people are clinging on to life preservers, or bits of driftwood.

 

[Sunstealer]

One of the prouder things for me was the utter rejection of the UKIP racists while the English embraced them in their millions. I

Keep going - this thread is comedy gold.

 

[theprestige]

I am amused by all the Lefties who claim to be in favor of the people,but when the people don't vote the way they like call the people a bunch of idiots . And I don't like the obvious implication:The people are too stupid to govern themsleves and need a revolutionary elite to tell them what to do.

Democracy is all well and good until you have to share it with folk.

 

[ddt]

[qimg]http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/5/13/1399999339739/Ace-Nnorom-004.jpg[/qimg]

Keep going - this thread is comedy gold.

That photo is from this Guardian article. Some quotes:

The two men shared a stage with Nigel Farage last week at a rally where the Ukip leader laid claim to the ethnic minority vote despite one of the party's MEPs having described Africa as "bongo bongo land" last year, and a candidate telling Lenny Henry last month to "emigrate to a black country" if he wanted to see more black faces on TV.

and:

But with one prominent supporter, Sanya-Jeet Thandi, leaving the party and telling the Guardian that the party is descending into a form of "racist populism", it seems Farage still has work to do to persuade others.

Or what about this journalist's question about the UKIP manifesto:

Footage from the press conference in Kent today reveals The Daily Telegraph’s chief political correspondent Christopher Hope being loudly heckled after asking Mr Farage why there was only one black face in Ukip’s manifesto.

“Nigel, you say you’ve read the document fully,” Mr Hope begins. “Are you happy that the only black face in the document is on the overseas aid page?”

As he finishes his statement audience members erupt into boos and jeers, as Mr Farage looks down expressionless.

And what does the founder think?

“I created a monster.” Alan Sked, who founded the Anti-Federalist League (that later came to be called the UKIP) in 1991, said the party had drifted from its original ideals of opposing European bureaucracy to espousing a message of racism and xenophobia.

Why did candidate Jonathan Stanley stand down?

In a third development, Jonathan Stanley has stood down as parliamentary candidate for Westmorland and Lonsdale, complaining of a culture of bullying and racism.

What about Rozanne Duncan?

Rozanne Duncan, who said she had a “problem” with black people and used racial epithets to describe them, said her comments were a “cry for help”.

Yeah right.
Or what about Andre Lampitt or William Henwood? Former Labour mninister Roche:

"The likes of Andre Lampitt and William Henwood haven't stumbled into supporting Ukip by accident. They see a direct correlation between their own extremists views and those of the party they have been campaigning for."

Lampitt, who featured in a Ukip election broadcast, was suspended from the party after a string of Islamophobic tweets emerged. Henwood was condemned when he said the comedian Lenny Henry should emigrate to a "black country" and compared Islam to the Third Reich.

And there are more:

Ukips's official General Election candidates have been caught posting racist and offensive material on the internet, revealing disturbing links between Nigel Farage's prospective MPs and far-Right groups.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that at least six Ukip candidates have circulated or endorsed material from the British National Party and other nationalist splinter groups with racist neo-Nazi agendas.

Ukip last night launched an investigation into the offensive media found by this newspaper that included a racist BNP cartoon depicting violent stereotypes of black people, Muslims and Sikhs, and online links to extremist groups Britain First, English Defence League and Infidels of Britain.

Is it any wonder that the most frequently googled question about the UKIP is whether the party is racist?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

We already had a referendum in 1970-something. How many more?

The referendum in the early '70s was for a far more limited union (the EEC) than the last forty odd years have brought, hence the aborted run of referendum after Mastrict. I'm in favour of the eu although I think more transparency and accountability is required but I think in the long run the lack of a clear mandate serves those who want to leave.

 

[Puppycow]

That 71% is UK wide, not Scottish, isn't it? It's possible the turnout there was significantly higher or lower.

66% UK wide, 71% in Scotland.

 

[Damien Evans]

[qimg]http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/5/13/1399999339739/Ace-Nnorom-004.jpg[/qimg]

Keep going - this thread is comedy gold.

Some of UKIP's best friends are black.

 

[Francesca R]

Wow that was an unexpected result.

So one possibility is that the UK leaves the EU and loses Scotland? That doesn't look at all sensible. I suspect it has vanishingly small probability. Cameron should be far less beholden to rebellious eurosceptics having done a Thatcher and increased seat count in term 2. And none of the opposition want to leave either.

On comparison with the Tories in the noughties, it may still be too early for Labour to figure out that tracking left, acting as though Blairism (their greatest success) was their enemy, was and is a daft thing to do. I would expect / hope they would become more centrist eventually. I think the denial that they made the state too big and still ran deficits thirteen years into an expansion was silly.

But although populism seems to be waning tribalism obviously isn't. Shame about those Lib Dems. Don't know if "history will judge them better than the electorate did". I do.

Good on the SNP for using FPTP (which they don't prefer) to beat the crap out of the system!

Wondering if the 45% income tax rate disappears in a year or two and it once again becomes politically impossible to bring that back (until the next global financial crisis). Maybe. It seemed like that could have easily gone the other way, with 50% becoming institutionalised. But all the polls and betting markets were hopelessly wrong.

 

[Aepervius]

But even this is imprecise and somewhat misleading. The poorest members of society are quite obviously not paying a "larger part" of the debt than the richer members. But the point is that the poorer members are paying disproportionately less as a proportion of their means than the wealthy.

To put it a little simplistically, if there were a flat tax rate of 20% on all earned income, then someone on £10k/year would pay £2k tax, while someone on £1m/year would pay £200k tax. Therefore the wealthier person would pay vastly more actual tax than the poorer person, but the same proportion of his/her means.

But progressive taxation means that the wealthier person actually pays a greater proportion of his/her means in tax than the poorer person. In the income examples above, the poorer person would pay zero income tax from next year, while the wealthier person might pay up to £400k tax.

Thus, the wealthier disproportionately support the poorer. That's the way it should be in a fair, redistributive, compassionate society. But it's rich when people still continue to claim that the poor are bearing a disproportionate burden in fiscal terms (which is explicitly what was being referenced in regard to servicing and paying down the national debt).

Sigh. That old canard. Disproportionate is always meant in that case to mean the EFFECT it has on the buying power and life of the person. As such VAT for example vastly hit disproportionately the poorer. And normal tax vastly hit more disproportionately any classes of people below the highest. To reduce it to absolute value like people like you do, display either an criminal energy at misunderstanding the problem or a fundamental problem of understanding on how money is used by people at all classes.

Oh, and that disproportionate support even in absolute numbers ? Pretty much bullcrap because without that support and the service offered, the wealthier would rapidly lose all mean to earn money if the social network break down, or if services are not maintained. The wealthiest member of our society , barring wallstreet speculation, became so because our society and its service supported a better economy. Remove that and .... *pouf*. All that wealth is gone.

So yeah, the wealthiest are not paying a disproportionate share. In fact I hold that in the last 20 - 40 years in many country they paid less and less of their share.

 

[Francesca R]

Disproportionate will always mean different things to people with different preferences/beliefs. So will "fair share". And people won't convince each other. Canards on all sides.

 

[Aepervius]

Disproportionate will always mean different things to people with different preferences/beliefs. So will "fair share". And people won't convince each other. Canards on all sides.

I disagree. When speaking of the live of the persons and tax impact, disproportionate has pretty much always meant to be how much stuff they can buy/not buy and does it impact their necessities. Taking *any* other values like above as percentage of revenue or percentage of total paid tax completely miss the point VERY intentionally. You may disagree that impact on the life of the "lowest" class has to be taken into account, but pretending that disproportionate means something else is spreading a lie.

 

[Francesca R]

Not at all. To some folks, how much percentage of gross income, or how much absolute gross income is taxed is a more important axis of proportion than what their net income is after tax.

You may have an interest in claiming that arguments other than yours are "lies" but that isn't really telling the truth.

 

[Craig B]

Not at all. To some folks, how much percentage of gross income, or how much absolute gross income is taxed is a more important axis of proportion than what their net income is after tax.

You may have an interest in claiming that arguments other than yours are "lies" but that isn't really telling the truth.

Are all taxes levied on income? If only that were so! As pointed out to London John by Aepervius, VAT is exceptionally regressive and doesn't manifest itself as gross or net income, but as unnecessarily high retail prices in the shops.

It is noteworthy that right wing governments often seek to increase the share of revenue derived from non-income taxes. Thatcher applied this principle to an insane degree, of course, and suffered badly in consequence.

 

[Francesca R]

No not all tax is levied on income. VAT is slightly progressive as a function of consumption, rather regressive as a function of income. Some of VAT is paid by producers (shareholders) in the sense that if VAT was cut their profits would benefit.

None of that changes the reality that their are quite different metrics of what is proportionate or fair. Lots of people prefer one that justifies what is the best outcome for themselves. That applies to right and left political views alike.

 

[Darat]

And the way the poorest are paying for deficit reduction is not via their taxes.

 

[Francesca R]

One of the harshest ways the poorest can end up paying is by being out of work.

 

[Craig B]

No not all tax is levied on income. VAT is slightly progressive as a function of consumption, rather regressive as a function of income. Some of VAT is paid by producers (shareholders) in the sense that if VAT was cut their profits would benefit.

We're not talking about one off effects if a tax disappeared. You can't say, shareholders are payers of VAT because if the VAT didn't exist then the value of their shares would be higher. You can't say that, because although the shareholder gets more by selling them, she or he would need to have paid more to acquire them in the first place, and the effect is cancelled out.

What you are talking about is someone buying shares, then VAT being reduced or abolished, and the shareholder thereafter selling them. A one-off windfall.

 

[Francesca R]

Incorrect. Shareholder returns could be reasonably expected to be higher on a permanent basis with lower VAT.

 

[LondonJohn]

Are all taxes levied on income? If only that were so! As pointed out to London John by Aepervius, VAT is exceptionally regressive and doesn't manifest itself as gross or net income, but as unnecessarily high retail prices in the shops.
It is noteworthy that right wing governments often seek to increase the share of revenue derived from non-income taxes. Thatcher applied this principle to an insane degree, of course, and suffered badly in consequence.

Nope. Most food is entirely exempt from VAT. Fuel is subject to only 5% VAT. Children's clothing/shoes are exempt from VAT.

Therefore, in terms of both consumption and income, VAT is slightly progressive taxation. Poorer people typically pay a lesser proportion of their consumption and their income on VAT than wealthier people do (since wealthier people tend to buy a much higher proportion of goods and services that are subject to full 20% VAT than poorer people).

But if someone's a raving left wing ideologue, then I guess realities such as these get swept away on a tide of anti-capitalist invective

 

[LondonJohn]

Jesus Christ, are you this condescending in person?

To put it simplistically, I was questioning the idea that only the Conservatives took repaying debt seriously by saying that most people do agree with repaying debt, but many question the means by which it was and is done. I'm still fairly confident that most people would read it that way, but maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps if I could rewrite the post, I would do so differently to make it more explicit.

Obviously I know how a *********** progressive tax works. I reiterate, since you seem to have missed it: that I wrote something that could be taken the wrong way does not make me a simpleton. You do not have to handhold me through taxation 101. You misunderstood what I wrote, which may have been my fault.

I was neither stating nor implying that you are a simpleton. I was stating that you wrote something that was a) factually partially incorrect, and b) imprecise in its implication. And, for that matter, something that sounded suspiciously close to left-wing class war rhetoric.