I can't tell you how much I hope the Conservatives win the election.

sally I live in hope that there's a long lost auntie out there with my name...

I actually think Inheritance Tax is completely immoral. Unless you are a non-dom you've paid tax on earnings already. Raising the threshold is the least that should be done. I'm not someone in a position to attract this tax anyway but nonetheless I can't find any argument to adequately defend it.

Proposed changes to IHT are not about people like "The Fucking Fulfords" fgs - this is just more propaganda. The Tories are raising the threshold - this means that fewer (pretty ordinary middle-class if you're SE) people will pay IHT!

Have never been overtly political for any party , but for the first time we have put up a poster (Conservative) in our front garden not because I particularly want David Cameron as PM, (tho' he will obviously be incomparably better than GB who has ben a spectular failure on all levels - particularly the economy) but because our local conservative candidate, a genuinely good person, has sufferd a campaign of lies and smears from our previously smug, now increasingly desperate, Lib Dem MP who has behaved despicably and I want her OUT!

link to BBC piece about Tax Credits. This should clear up any confusion caused by Gordon Brown's lies!

Well said mint humbug.

God, haven't got time to read though all the postings but OP, I heartliy agree with you. I have never been so het up about an election in my life, previously I wanted Conservatives to get in but I genuinely feel DESPERATE for them to get in this time. I live in a rural community where most people are self-employed and they all feel the same.

"what about the people like us who earn 17K per year? How are we supposed to cope with tax credits being scrapped if the tories get in?"

They won't be for you :S

Scrapping for 50K +. FFS, falling for propaganda?

rocknstroll - you are being incredibly rude on this thread. By and large the political debate on MN has been polite - robust yes, but polite. But you are just rude so please take yourself and your ill-informed opinions elsewhere.

kaylasmum - if your family income is as low as £17K then your tax credits will not be cut at all.

Zephrine - no-one is saying that the recession was anything other than global, simply that thanks to years of mismanagement from Labour that Britain was in a far worse position to cope than many countries that we consider ourselves on a par with, France and Germany for example.

So the Tories were against the war? Funny, that's not quite how I remember it.

Oh good god. Were all you Tories having a nice long sleep while the global financial system was imploding?

scaryteacher of course there are more people in urban areas but the stats show percentages of pupils eligible not numbers.

So, what have the Tories pledged to do about rural poverty?

Lots of the stats show free school meal entitlement of 25% plus in the poorer areas of Cornwall. As there are more people in urban areas then the scale is going to be greater, but that does not mitigate the underfunding of the Cornish schools for the past decade; considering also the strain on SW incomes from the highest water bills in the UK, and some of the lowest incomes.

Minthumbug, please point us in the direction of the evidence that the Tories would have, for example, put the brakes on those activities of the banking sector which caused global financial meltdown. It might make me change my mind and vote Conservative.

Everyone will cut.

The Tories will enjoy doing it and would have done it anyway.

That'll be why I'm not voting for them. (That and the non-freezing over of hell, of course.)

It's all about priorities.

None of the parties have revealed enough spending cuts/tax increases to fill the hole in the budget, so we have to assume they're going to do more in the vein of what they've already proposed.

So the Tories are going to save £6bn by cutting public sector jobs (I'm assuming they haven't factored in the cost of then putting all those people on benefits, not to mention the social costs)
...and they want to spend £3 to £6bn on an inheritance tax cut for the richest 0.8% of estates in the country.

That tells me all I need to know about the Conservatives' priorities - protect the rich, screw the plebs - and that is why I will not be voting for them.

Scaryteacher: "When I was teaching in Cornwall, some of the farmers kids qualified for free school meals; and the families were on the bones of their arse trying to keep things going. Labour do NOT understand rural Britain and have done nothing for it. Less money is given to schools in Devon and Cornwall than in other Labour held parts of the country; please explain how that is fair?"

I agree with you that rural poverty is a genuine problem, but the scale of the problem is quite different in urban areas, hence the difference in funding. A quick look through the statistics on free school meals shows eligibility in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset at around 10% each. In Camden, Lambeth and Newham it's round 39% each.

Regarding the issue of farming and food prices, I agree that farming has been badly neglected, but this has everything to do with free market ideology, and you won't find the Tories going against the tide on this.