To wonder why the conservatives won't just tax people more ??

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

Am I missing something here ?

Clearly there is a scarcity of money - and certain areas are rightly ring fenced .

But don't tell me that most working families can't afford an average of £50 a month - this would exclude people on low income , and for some families it £10 and for some £200 -

The UK is full of families and individuals with disposable income - a minor tax increase for 40% of the working population could raise £11bn

So why won't they do it ??? Baffles me - I would personally rather pay more tax and know that the vulnerable are cared for

I think that is a matter of opinion the issue is so few proposals are put forward what does the Labour Party stand for now what are there answers to the budget

Well he has taken Dave's advice and got himself a suit

He answered the budget quite well, saying the same thing the rest of us have that it was tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

I'm not a great Corbyn fan, but he is new to the job and people need to be allowed time. Cameron and Osborne have had 6 years in power and over 10 years as leaders and they still stuff it up.

Not all all those who need benefits are from disadvantaged homes and not all those who have grown up in difficult circumstance need benefits later, the situation is far more complex. However there is a point at which tax becomes a disincentive to work and also if benefits too high that too is disincentive to work

That's not enough he is leader of the opposition not a rebellious backbencher anymore he needs to put proposals forward anyone can stand up there and say it's an unfair budget that was obvious

Lurked101 Problem is that Labour have a lot to make up from the last election, Corbyn is currently (according to the polls) more popular than Cameron.

I am very involved in local campaigning and local government from a cross party perspective. I know what is said on the doorstep; I hear it personally, and from canvassers from Labour, the LibDems and the Tories.

There is no upswing in support for Labour under Corbyn in our constituency wards nor the next two along. There just isn't. And we are in the North with a solid working class base that traditionally votes Labour.

All traditional Labour supporters in our constituency wards are concerned about is immigration, the EU and Brexit. And Corbyn does not attract swing voters. Indeed, privately, our local Labour members who live in the real world, rather than in a digital echo chamber, fear Corbyn will lose them controlling seats in May's election. One local Labour member who actually goes out canvassing reported that he has a hard time trying to persuade trad Labour voters from voting for UKIP.

Corbyn has attracted lots of support, from the young especially, I think the next election will be closer than you think, mainly because the Tories have started to do things for the advantage of a select group and is very blatant.

The idea is that young voters are going to appear out of the ether and vote for someone like Corbyn is a notion that has been around for years in radical left circles. I have heard it for years; it never happens -- not even after huge youth demonstrations or legislation that directly penalises youth lifestyles. The reality is that the youth vote can never compete against the over-30 vote, by virtue of the fact that it is a significantly smaller electoral pool.

The other thing you are missing is that while the Tories may be doing things for for the advantage of a select group, Labour is also perceived as being the same: i.e. the impression that they favour certain minorities and migrants over the British working class (in some cases, that they actively loathe the British working class). Corbyn has done nothing to correct this notion whatsoever; in fact, he has made it worse.

The only people to potentially gain in this scenario are the LibDems, but they are pretty much disastrous in terms of organisation and consistent messages at the moment.

Excellent post Werks

Very interesting post Werk

Interesting post, I've had other people tell me that Corbyn has had an effect on swing voters, but maybe yours is differnent

But fucking hell I've got to have some hope for the future, that someone will notice that the current lot are incompetent and taking apart our society for the benefit of big business.

"Labour is also perceived as being the same: i.e. the impression that they favour certain minorities and migrants over the British working class"

Which would be an entirely wrong perception, who fights for fair wages, for workers rights, for education and for health. Its the Labour party, it certainly isn't the Tories or the treacherous Lib Dems.

People knew that at the last election but they didn't like be leader or trust him to be able to lead the country

If they did labour would have won

It certainly isn't Labour though, lurked, and it's pointless claiming that they do.

Fair wages yes, if you want to be dependent on welfare.
Workers rights? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Education was ruined under Blair.
Health, I just don't know enough about to comment either way.

Which would be an entirely wrong perception, who fights for fair wages, for workers rights, for education and for health. Its the Labour party

Really? What exactly did Labour do to pursue fair wages during their last tenure? Wages either stagnated or fell, especially for the lowest paid and traditional Labour voters i.e. manual or low skilled workers. At the same time the spiralling cost of housing made them much poorer in real terms. And we tumbled down the international educational rankings.

Workers rights? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha!

National Minimum wage, Labour Policy. There were others too, but you can't just look at the last labour Government historically Labour have made things better for workers.

Education did not get worse. The investment in education made things a lot better, we actually retained teachers, had good classrooms, books that were up to date, all things we didn't get previously.

Health we got new hospitals and more nurses trained, we got lots more investment in it.

Stop believing the tory rhetoric, I'm deeply disappointed with Labour atm, but I can;t think of any one group who would damage the country more than this current government.

Everyone roaring about academies appears to have forgotten they came about under Labour. Thanks, Tony.

Lurked101 But fucking hell I've got to have some hope for the future, that someone will notice that the current lot are incompetent and taking apart our society for the benefit of big business.

Oh, people are noticing -- in the Conservative Party.

There's a mood brewing among Tories. One nation Tories are not happy about the EU and they are seriously not happy about the apparent dismantling of some of what they perceive to be the fundamental social and cultural structures of British society and the state: namely, health-care and education. They are starting to have issues with Cameron and his lackeys.

Which would be an entirely wrong perception, who fights for fair wages, for workers rights, for education and for health. Its the Labour party, it certainly isn't the Tories or the treacherous Lib Dems.

You are not seeing it from their perspective. What they see is immigration undercutting wages, increasing competition for jobs, overwhelming schools and GP surgeries, and increasing competition for housing -- and they remember the Blair and Brown years where any debate about immigration was shut down and they were told they were imagining it all.

The point here is not that these former Labour voters will vote for the Tories or LibDems, but that they will not vote at all -- and that, in itself, becomes problematic further down the line.

Or if they do vote Werks, it tends to be for UKIP.

well the sooner we get a new leader for the Labour Party the better chance we have of winning the next election because right now with JC leader of the party we have no chance at all

A man who had close ties to the IRA in the height of their bombing campaign and calls a Hammas a political party that wants to see the destruction of Isreal friends will never ever be leader of this country and rightly so

And also having Red Ken and Diane Abbout as close allies completely alienates even staunch labour supporters

Acadmies were actually a different idea under Labour, failing schools were converted and helped. Not the same at all.

The point about PISA rankings, oh god I'm not going to explain that its too complicated. Lets just say international league tables are subject to manipulation and the collection of the data has massive flaws.

I think Labour do need a new leader sadly. Corbyn is Michael Foot all over again.

On immigration? I think a lot of people like to blame it for all of societies ills, one of the biggest being the schools and hospitals problem. The government are happy to blame immigration because the real issue there is lack of funding caused by the "austerity" drive, which ideological not neccesary and will allow them to achieve their ultimate goal of the dismantling of the welfare state and outsourcing it for profit.

"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital" Noam Chomsky
"

*The government are happy to blame immigration because the real issue there is lack of funding caused by the "austerity" drive, which ideological not neccesary and will allow them to achieve their ultimate goal of the dismantling of the welfare state and outsourcing it for profit.

Oh please!

Try employing some basic common sense.

An additional 336,000 people came to live in the UK last year. That is a city the size of Bournemouth and another city the size of Reading.

And you think the problem is austerity?

I suggest the problem is that we have an additional 336,000 people that we never planned for all competing to access schools, hospitals and housing. If you want an extra 336,000 new British residents every year you have to build the infrastructure and provide the services they need.

"build the infrastructure and provide the services they need"

Which can't be done when budgets are being slashed, at the same time as we have the problems of an aging population.

We are quite happy to tax the immigrants, and lets be honest the tories could have done something about it in the 6 years they've been in power. Its the lack of investment that cuts to the heart of the problem.

Your comparison with city sizes is slightly erroneous because they don't all go to one place.

Also there are as nearly many Brit ex pats in the EU as there are people from EU nations here.

What's the point of a NMW when you allow housing to become so expensive that it becomes meaningless because workers are no better off because they're paying far more out for somewhere to live than the NMW has added? And it wasn't a living wage, never was. It was so low it had to be supplemented with tax credits. Plus the Tories have raised it substantially. It hardly unshackled the workers and gave them power.

In 2000 (at which point few substantial changes had been made by Labour) the UK was 4th in the OECD international rankings for science, 7th for reading and 8th for maths.

By 2009 we were 16th for science, 25th for reading and 28th for maths.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11929277

Literacy and numeracy rates fell sharply under Labour too. Can you please explain in which universe this shows improving educational standards? These are figures from independent non-political organisations.

You can throw around as many platitudes about 'we bought new books' as you like. They're not much use when the pupils can't fucking read them.

*"build the infrastructure and provide the services they need"

Which can't be done when budgets are being slashed, at the same time as we have the problems of an aging population. *

Or reduce mass uncontrolled migration from the EU. There's a novel idea.

We are quite happy to tax the immigrants, and lets be honest the tories could have done something about it in the 6 years they've been in power. Its the lack of investment that cuts to the heart of the problem.

You won't raise much tax from an immigrant from an immigrant on minimum wage with a partner and 2 school age children living in rented accommodation. I think you'll find the Government is subsiding the family to be in the UK.

Your comparison with city sizes is slightly erroneous because they don't all go to one place.

Lol! Great observation. That's why I used a comparator.

Also there are as nearly many Brit ex pats in the EU as there are people from EU nations here

Yes, paying to use their services while the UK shells out £647 million in health care to European countries and receives £49 million in return. If the UK was a company and ran its finances like this, it would soon go bust.

Oh please , the 2000 data was uneliable because it didn't have enough countries taking part. The collection of PISA data is comp,icated, the kids don't take the same test in different countries. There is variables in the way the data can be read that means countries could have totally different places. For example in 2006 the main focus of the test, the only one that all children took was science, many countries didn't have reading tests, but PISA publised rankings for reading anyway.

Don't quote figures you don't understand.

"Allowing housing to become so expensive" That would be the market, wouldn't it, not really down to the government but they should have built more social housing during the time they were in power.

The Tories would have done nothing different they have also been in power 6 years and not stopped immigration, but what they have done is cut funding from essential services, stopped investment, stopped the schools for the future programme the list is endless.

But they can find money for "free schools" and garden bridges can't they.

UK immigrants pay more in tax than they claim in benefits your point about being subsidised to be here is incorrect.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/04/uk-immigration-_n_4212431.html
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/eu-migrants-uk-gains-20bn-ucl-study

The tories have had 6 years to reduce immigration, they haven't. The country benefits from it directly.

Your comparison is erroneous because that many people coming into one place would cause issues, when dispersed across the country it makes a much smaller difference.

Oh and did you know that more than half of the free schools are opening in places where there is spare capacity, great fiscal management