Do you think the Tories will get a majority in 2015?

lottie I think you are right. People do see sickness and disability as something that happens to other people (until they are personally affected and then it's a different story of course!). I just don't think there have been enough 'real stories' out there in the media to catch peoples attention and appeal to whatever empathy is left in British society.

There is no doubt that Britain looks 'better on paper' after the coalition but you don't have to delve far to find out what damage is being done under the surface to create the shiny statistics that they want you to read.

Lottie They have, but I think that by the time the election comes, the country will be in a very different place. The lectorate don't really have that long a memory.

I personally think that the coallition have got more right than wrong. They've by no means been perfect, but on the whole, I think they're what the country need.

Sorry Pans - lost me - maybe you have to be clearer? What has my reading and comprehension to do with rising house prices in the noughties?
Did Gordon do anything to stop it? Did he do anything to curb borrowing, people living on credit? Have I missed it?

I'm not an economist but I could see it coming ...only thing I am surprised about is that house prices didn't fall a hell of a lot more... (won't be surprised if they don't crash even further in the future).
I choose not to buy a house in 2006-7 (just before the crash) even though we really needed more space - I also encouraged my partner to sell his business (sold Apr 2007) ...
Labour have to take responsibility (which I thought they had - but you don't) for at least some of the mess - or they will never be trusted...
And why did Gordon sell the gold? Like taking your gold chain to the pawn shop when you don't have too - much better holding on to it for when you might actually really need it....

For as long as the alternative to Dave and George is Ed and Ed, yes, I think the Tories will get a majority. Ed Milliband just has not got what it takes to be PM.

But not the people who vote lottieandmia - the Tories haven't pissed them off and that's what counts.

I wonder how those who do vote Tory genuinely feel about how their policies are impacting on sick and disabled people? There is lots of evidence that they are causing severe hardship and misery amongst this group. I just don't know how that is reconciled in the minds of those who broadly support cuts to benefits and services..

Don't get me wrong, I blame Labour for a lot of wasted money and opportunities too. The way house prices were allowed to spiral out of control was indeed irresponsible. However, there is no doubt in my mind that some Tory policies have been just plain discriminatory and nasty.

Hopefully the Tories will get in. There is still a huge global economic problem.

Labour has never left power having cut employment, the Tories have.

so unlucky you have a reading and comprehension problem?

So pans who do you blame for the out of control property price increases in the noughties?
And that is a massive contributor to the 'cost of living' crisis...

I notice also there Isitmebut all of those 'evidences' are very highly speculative - survey, suggestions etc. But of course does nothing in addressing the cost of living crisis nor the acute differences in wealth and income.

Good god I hope not. What else would they fuck up?

ttosca…for decades class warrior dinosaurs blamed Thatcher for all the industrial problems caused by the 1970’s Labour/trade union destruction of our industrial base – and now blame the Conservative for the ‘great recession’, started under Labour’s watch and enhanced by Labour’s financial recession – so as recessions unusually last a year or two, of course it takes years to come out of the damage done within such a recession, when the banks weren’t functioning/lending properly.

What was Labour’s solution; lower VAT for 2-years and ‘more of the same’ throwing money at their Quangocracy – what a recipe for Private Sector growth. Lol

With the IMF again saying we are the fastest growing economy if the G7 thanks to Osbournes pro business reforms, THAT FILTERS THROUGH TO HIGHER WAGES, just being seen, to hit government figures over coming months.

“(Reuters) - British employers are raising the salaries they offer to new permanent staff at the fastest rate in nearly seven years as they struggle to fill vacancies, a survey showed on Tuesday.”

uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/uk-britain-economy-employment-idUKBREA361ZQ20140408

“The figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation suggest Britain's strong economic recovery last year is finally translating into higher pay.”

“The REC said its monthly survey showed that average salaries for permanent staff were up by the biggest amount since July 2007, though wage growth for temporary staff slowed slightly.”

"Worsening candidate shortages mean that the number of people available to fill both temporary and permanent jobs is falling at the sharpest rate in nearly a decade," he added.”

You do talk tosh Isitme. Those articles do no such thing as lay the blame for the 'financial crisis' at Brown's door. He talks of regrets about not controlling the banks in the UK firmly enough (when the Tory pig troughers were wanting much less control btw) - I am pretty sure the rest of the sane world looks to world business cyclical behaviours, the collapse of the sub-prime market in the US, Leahman Bros. etc.

So do please get over yourself.

ttosca….the financial crisis was Brown’s, starting with the regulatory tripartite of the financial sector he formed, I have explained it to you about 5-times now and you cannot challenge those facts – I know as a ‘class warrior’ you need to blame someone else, but Brown and the FSA he formed have owned up to it, so do get over it.

metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

As for the housing problems/bubble, I’ve given my current opinion on the last post on this thread on he News board.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1977704-UK-Interest-Mortgage-Rates-WHO-S-in-control?pg=2

But TT - who got us into the mess in the first place - no more boom and bust?
Who let the house prices get so inflated in the first place - it wasn't the Tories - my house has tripled in value (supposedly) from 2001 -2007...I should be really happy but I'm not...
This was a cheap house (bought to suit our circumstances at the time) - now it is out of the price range of most locals and if we sold for what we paid for it a) we couldn't afford anywhere else and b) some property developer/cash sale would buy and have it back on the market in 2 weeks at the triple price...
And I can't see a way to get us out of the mess without people being in negative equity etc - people bought and are still buying at inflated prices
I don't agree with what the Tories are doing at the moment either with housing though...

House prices is one thing that makes me furious with Labour ..(along with selling the gold and taxes on pensions) they could have controlled rising property prices ...but didn't - if anything they encouraged it - swept up in the 'we all feel rich'.
Result of that is that such a high percentage of people's income needs to be spent on somewhere to live -so they have less money to spend on other things - like food - which in turn has encouraged the production and consumption of cheap, cheaply produced food with minimal animal welfare standards and pesticides and fertilizers... pointless bringing in the NMW - it might be three times the hourly rate it was when it was introduced but so is the cost of housing - no-one is better off...

(but not as angry as I was and still am over Iraq)

TTT’s ……..But then it wasn’t the Eaton crowd that got us into this Labour Oxbridge mess, but on a ‘big picture’ basis, seems to be getting us out of it.

It was precisely the Eton crown that got us in to this mess - it was the finance sector and the rest of their rich chums.

And the Tory scum are not getting us out of anything.

It has taken the UK 4 years to get out of a recession -- the longest recession of any postwar period. And even now recovery is yet again based in artificially inflated house prices. Another bubble waiting to pop.

Economic growth doesn't mean squat unless people have jobs and can afford to pay for housing, food, and the necessities of life.

GDP, growth, etc. are bourgeois economic indicators. They indicate the rate of profits for businesses.

They don't indicate how well the population is doing. The public are thousands of pounds less well off than they were a decade ago. They are less secure in their jobs. They have less opportunity to 'get on the property ladder'. They have less disposible income.

Contrarian….I’m still on the fence myself, lol.

TTT’s ……..But then it wasn’t the Eaton crowd that got us into this Labour Oxbridge mess, but on a ‘big picture’ basis, seems to be getting us out of it.

“The International Monetary Fund raised its forecasts for U.K. economic growth for the second time this year, predicting Britain will have the fastest expansion among developed nations.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/imf-sees-u-k-leading-g-7-economic-growth-in-2014.html

Boris to save the world, who knew

It's funny, isn't it? Boris is every bit as much of a toff as Cameron and Osbourne, yet he's so outspoken and off message and scruffy that he has a much wider appeal than they do.

UKIP scare me - I hope they die a death at this next election. They're full of the sort of right-wing ideas that old school, died-in-the-wool, Daily Mail-reading Tories (like my aunt), love, but they've got no clear vision for this country other than leaving the EU and limiting immigration.

And I agree Alibaba about Scotland. Vote Yes!

I think they'll do it. People just don't trust labour. Their record on the economy speaks for itself and they're not very good at getting their policies heard. I'd have more respect for them if they said they were going to nationalise certain industries (there'd be broad support for nationalising the railway).

As it is, we've just got Red Ed who isn't even the best politician in his own family

There'll be a sense come 2015 that we've started to properly turn the corner, people won't want labour to wreck it. They'll vote tory (secretly in many cases).

If you believed Mumsnet to be broadly representative of the electorate, Labour would walk it. Thankfully though, out there in the real world, people are a little more pragmatic.

No incumbent government has ever gained more seats than in subsequent elections so, statistically, maybe not.

I jused to vote for the conservatives when John Major was the head of the party but I just feel now it's a few men who all know each other from school who run everything, so I won't be doing again until that changes. I feel they think that women are there for window dressing and that really makes my ANGRY!

Ukip with one European policy they can't deliver, with no domestic policies, and no talent within thats even visited Westminster to deliver them - they are clearly the obvious choice for those that want something 'different' - to run complex government departments and dig us out of £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 tril) of national debt in 2015.

And who was it that had to call in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to balance the UK's books in 1976 like modern day Greece, a Labour government or Thatcher???

The only difference to the pre May 2010 debacle from back then, was Labour didn't stay in power and try and sort out the UK's social and economic problems of their own making, promising 'more of the same'.

Thats right lottieandmia...it was all Thatchers fault that Manufacturing fell from around 29% of the UK economy in the early 1970's and around 22% when she came in - and nothing to do with this shower.

When Labour & UK Trade Unions last ‘shared’ power and didn’t have the same priorities = Thatcher.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

“The Winter of Discontent refers to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay rises, following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party government led by James Callaghan against Trades Union Congress opposition to control inflation, during the coldest winter for 16 years.”

“The strikes were a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by a forced departure from their social contract with the unions by imposing rules on the public sector that pay rises be kept below 5%, to control inflation in itself and as an example to the private sector.”

When UK Trade Unions dictated to businesses and German & Japanese workers didn’t = mass producing British car companies decimated.
news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8401000/8401200.stm

“British Leyland's Speke factory symbolised all that was wrong with UK car manufacturing in the dark days of the 1970s, a million miles away from the high performing plants of today at Ellesmere Port and Halewood.”

“In 1978 British Leyland's Speke Number Two plant was under threat of closure, afflicted by a series of crippling strikes, low sales of the TR7 it manufactured, and a history of poor industrial relations coupled with inefficiencies.”

“In 1970 British Leyland, who had taken over Triumph, spent £10.5 million building Speke Number Two plant, it was one of the most modern and best equipped plants in Europe designed to build 100,000 vehicles a year all under one roof.”

“When BBC Nationwide visited in February 1978 the plant only had a few months of life left.”