To not understand how people can justify it

[ijustdontunderstand]

Okay, not a bun fight I just want to understand how those who vote Tory can think the cuts to disability benefits are OK.

This is NOT saying if you vote Tory you're a bad person, at all, I just want to understand. Will you vote them in again knowing?

Corbyn? I'm as hopeful as a teenager. Sadly I'm also as cynical as an old tart.

That sums up how I feel too, Worcswoman. I'm encouraged by the strength of feeling that brought him victory in the leadership election, that suggests other people are also tired of feeling like the only difference between Tory and NuLab are the colours of the ties being worn and appreciating that there is a party leader with principles proposing some policies I can get behind, but I think it's clear he's already being painted as "unelectable" and as we've seen, some people are too quick to believe the media spin.

I find it deeply depressing that, if David Cameron uses the word 'dangerous' when talking about Corbyn often enough, then that is what the public believe. Are we really that fucking suggestible?

I will vote Labour. I am absolutely desperate for change. I am sick of braying and insults and ego and money and who you play golf with defining our politics - this isn't a criticism of the Tories, Tony Blair was exactly the same and it is an insult to us all.

I would rather vote out of hope than cynicism. I would rather the country tried something new and failed than to carry on failing as we are doing the same old things, out of fear. If we were in a time of prosperity and higher standards of living with overflowing coffers - or even if it felt like we were all in this together and the economy was being mended - it may well be 'dangerous' to vote for change. But the deficit is bigger than it ever was, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger, even my Conservative voting friends are utterly bewildered by what's going on with Education and the NHS and the introduction of PIP and the BBC...

Can change really be any more 'dangerous' than this? How much worse does it have to get before the argument that 'it would be worse under Labour' loses all meaning? How many more people have to commit suicide or join the queue at the food bank?

Applauds Cauliflower

Well Cauliflower when the top 3,000 highest paid workers all Foxtrot Oscar out of the U.K. once Corbyn is elected, you had better hope he has a good plan to recover their tax take from elsewhere. (The top 3,000 make the same tax contribution as the 9 million lowest earners).

Good luck with that.

YANBU

Yes. Because that is exactly what will happen. Overnight, an exodus.

Just like they left the last time the upper threshold of income tax was raised to 50p as per Corbyn's suggestions. They all just up and left!

And yet are still here.

We are constantly told that. It never happens.

I want to live in a country where vulnerable people are looked after. Homelessness has increased in the last 5 years. Nobody should be sleeping out on the streets.

I thought there are 30 million taxpayers (income tax) in the UK, not 9 million? or are pretending those in the middle bracket don't count?

I am old enough to remember the 1970's - which I think we can agree is the last time we had a "proper" left wing government. And that is pretty much exactly what happened.

(My mother still speaks wanly about the time she had tickets to see the Rolling Stones in London, but they cancelled rather than get clobbered for 90% tax when they entered the country...)

Owl the 9 million lowest paid - the statistic I quoted ignores the middle chunk.

What is the statistic for the middle chunk? How much tax do they pay compared to the top and the bottom?

Many of the lowest paid pay no tax. So disingenuous figures.

I can't claim to be deeply familiar with Corbyn's hypothetical plans for future taxation, but I'm pretty sure we'd have heard plenty about any proposed 90% tax rate.

Owl they are HMRC figures - feel free to look them up yourself. The point is that high earners already shoulder a considerable tax burden.

From the same analysis - the top 10% of earners pay 55% of total income tax. The idea that the rich are somehow not taxed is a bit of a myth.

The baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. It's terrible. There have been too many people living on benefits for too long who simply did not need or deserve them. I used to live surrounded by them.

It makes me sick that so many people here have worked and struggled through real pain and disability and will be penalised by having essential benefits taken away. It also makes me sick that there have been entire generations of families living on benefits, as if they had some God given right to them, mostly while doing cash in hand work on the side. And don't tell me they don't exist - I knew quite a few of them.

And I don't vote Tory. I hate David Cameron and his gang of posh mates and I hate their attitude of arrogance and entitlement. I hate how little they understand the lives of ordinary people. I hate them for attacking the NHS because they can afford private care but so many people can't.

And yet, with all that, there does need to be an overhaul of the benefits system. It's just the awful, cack-handed way it's being done that is making such a disaster of it and penalising the people who need it most, to try and chase the able into work. And of course there need to be jobs for people to go to. It's a mess. I don't even know what the answer is.

0.7% of benefits are claimed fraudulently every year. It costs the taxpayer £1.6bn. It is very difficult to find the wrongdoers.

Tax avoidance costs the U.K. £34bn every year.

Hmrc knows full well who is avoiding. The wrongdoers are easy to find.

But let's go after disabled people indiscriminately. Because austerity.

Government satistics from YoungGirlGrowingOld ? But used to support a fantasy based on her mother's experience of a Rolling Stones concert? Ah Ted Heath. A pin-up of yours?

Sorry it was just too funny.

Those who are financially stable may be slightly worse off under a Labour government but they'll still be absolutely fine....they're not going to be stripped of all their material wealth and thrown out into the streets.

But lower paid and/or disabled people will be offered a bit more help....what's wrong with that? Labour are far from perfect but at least they're a little more caring.

Hit hard times under the Tories and you're stuffed - whether you voted them in or not.

Ad hom insults are rather easier to sling about than credible economic policies from Labour governments, but okay worcs.

I thought the reason for being dubious about the DWP's own stats on benefit fraud were self-evident. Avoiding fraudulent claims is in their remit, so they would say the figure was low. And how can they possibly measure it accurately? And yes, I am afraid another "inconvenient truth" is that there was a bit of a brain drain in the 1970's. And I expect it will happen again under a future punitive tax regime of any party in government.

Insult away, if it makes you feel better. As I said on my earlier post, insults are what leftists do best. It still doesn't mean that every Tory voter is a heartless bastard who delights in seeing the poor and needy suffer.

Is there a reason you're skipping back to the 1970s rather than talking about the Labour government from 1997 to 2010, YoungGirl?

Yes - it was in response to someone upthread who claimed it wasn't a "proper" i.e. left wing government and would not/did not do anything different to the evil baby eating Tories

YoungGirlGrowingOld
Apologies, I put a jokey comment on as a device to delete it. I've been trying to get to grips with the site and thought to go to my account and delete straight away but can't see how to do that. My bad. This is not the time and place to explore such things. Oh and I've never sought to argue for Labour. Or any party. I was merely trying to fathom yours. Apologies again.

Some people sound so bloody ignorant. If they're implying that Labour "ran the country into the ground" I'd like to know how they justify that. To they mean with pre-recession spending? Because they are on another planet if they think it's wouldn't of been worse with the Tories, who said they'd spend bloody more in power.

And to the pp who said there's other aspects other than disability allowance, such as healthcare and education. There's not a professional in either field who would claim the Tories arn't snashint those sectors onto pieces.

They have even cut police numbers in the middle of a global terrorism crisis.

I think it's truly amazing how people accept what they are spoon fed by a largely self interested, right wing media.