Are the conservatives really this popular?

[LabourHere]

Listening to statistician on BBC who reckons the conservatives are head in all polls and will win a majority on election day.

I know only two people voting conservative (mil and dm). Who are all the other conservative voters??

Are the conservatives really going to win the election so easily?

If so...I'm very very sad

So, the LEA will be responsible for inspecting its own schools. Can you not see the potential problems there

Better than the current way OFSTED works - LEAs and schools should be working together to improve education instead of an inspector who doesn't know the school coming in for a few days every 3 - 5 years and passing judgement.

On the point about council tax there is far too much tax all round and yet no party really plans to reduce it much as they all like loads of power and a huge state

So if we reduce public spending, where would you start?
NHS
Education
Benefits
Miltary?
Nuclear weapons

At least Corbyn believes in something.

Yes, he believes in screwing the country for the sake of his rigid socialist ideology - that’s the problem.

Will the NHS also be running 4 days a week under Labour? Will it need to find 25% more staff or pay the existing staff 25% more for a day’s less service? What a ludicrous joke of a policy!

Better than the current way OFSTED works - LEAs and schools should be working together to improve education instead of an inspector who doesn't know the school coming in for a few days every 3 - 5 years and passing judgement.

Absolutely lovely idea. However, many serious cases have shown that councils are really damn good at covering their own arses when it comes to serous failings in safeguarding. For all its flaws, Ofsted remains independent of the schools it is inspecting - as it should be.

This is yet another example of Labour ‘giving way’ to the demands of trade union activists without any real thought as to the consequences.

However, many serious cases have shown that councils are really damn good at covering their own arses when it comes to serous failings in safeguarding

OFSTED have been pretty crap at that for many years as well.
How many 'lessons' have been learnt that haven't been learnt?

A regime that inspects schools only up to 11 years in some cases is not really doing its job as an inspectorate, is it?

schoolsweek.co.uk/inspection-gap-for-outstanding-schools-widens-to-11-years-and-other-things-we-learned-from-ofsted/

Couldn't agree more CendrillonSings.

DH's employers quite literally shit a brick every time the minimum wage goes up. First they cut the ten minute afternoon break. Second they instituted working, what they lovingly call "bell to whistle", which means the workers have to show up ten minutes early and wash their hands/get changed out of uniform and safety gear after their shift ends. I think that is technically unlawful as it means the workers are at work unpaid for at least 1 hour and 15 minutes each week which brings their wage below minimum wage.

Cunts.

Yes, he believes in screwing the country for the sake of his rigid socialist ideology - that’s the problem

And when the wheels start coming off the magic bus as they always do, the intellectual giants that are the shadow cabinet still won’t be able to grasp why...,

The four day work week sounds a lot like Corbyn, Abbot and McDonnell smoked some pot and then did some brainstorming.

A regime that inspects schools only up to 11 years in some cases is not really doing its job as an inspectorate, is it?

The conservatives have already announced that they’re ending the exemption of Outstanding schools from inspections.

However, you’re one of those who will argue that Corbyn is clean-shaven if the Daily Mail says he has a beard, so I fully expect you to have to get the last word in.

Will the NHS also be running 4 days a week under Labour? Will it need to find 25% more staff or pay the existing staff 25% more for a day’s less service? What a ludicrous joke of a policy

Many companies have found that a shorter working week (32 hrs average) has improved productivity and has improved work life balance. A happier work force is a more productive work force

People who work part time are often more productive than full time workers - maybe there's more focus, more incentive to work harder than over a full week.

Who knows if if can be implemented? I suspect there are some people on here who would like to go back to the Victorian times of 6 days a week and would have dismissed proposals of a 5 day week out of hand.

The conservatives have already announced that they’re ending the exemption of Outstanding schools from inspections

If only they hadn't been in power for the last 10 years and could have done something about it then.

You can only know a school and its strengths and weaknesses if you have a relationship with it.

A 2 day inspection is a farce. I have worked in schools and seen how they fool an inspector. An OFSTED report needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and they are not worth the paper they are written on.

Entropy. Sounds like my place

Where I live I don't know anyone voting tory but ours is a pretty safe labour seat, as much as anything because our local Mp is great. Where my mum lives in the countryside it is tory all the way. There are a lot of very well off people who want to stay that way. I think we will see a city /rural split again like we did with the referendum

You can only know a school and its strengths and weaknesses if you have a relationship with it.

Unfortunately, from my experience an Ofsted inspector who had access to a school’s data had a far better ‘insight’ into what was going on in the school without even stepping foot in it than the supposed ‘advisor’ from the LEA who had worked with the headteacher for years. It was the advisor who was not worth a single penny of their salary.

However, we have obviously had different experiences so are just going to have to agree to disagree.

Those who vote Tory - are you happy with NHS, Education, Social care for the elderly? If you are...gulp! If not how do you propose we fund the improvement in public services, if not through taxes - or are you opposed to public services in general?

No one could be happy with the present state of the nation. The issues that you raise are so enormous they require cross party discussions and cross party solutions. No one will get their full wish list ticked and delivered. But the answer is a wholesale rewrite of tax law, to protect children and the very seriously incapacitated/elderly only, but to expect everyone else to do their bit. Nobody can be exempted from working. Nobody should expect unlimited free anything. Not me, nor you.

Log, I think the state provides far too much of everything and also wastes a lot of money. I would probably start with cutting all foreign aid - we give about £300m to Pakistan alone. I wuold also like to remove responsibility for the old on to families expect for a safety net for those with none. In Germany there is a legal obligation to support elderly relatives for example. There is an awful lot we can do to reduce the size and power of the state, give people more freedom and allow them to keep more of the money which they earn.

The nation has always been in a state. read anything even form the 1700s and you will get someone saying things are not like they used to be and the country is going to the dogs. The bottom line is people have never been as well cared for as now my our welfare state. When I was born we didn't even have central heating. Our universal free healthcare is so popular people want to move here. They don't even like France - they want to make it to the UK.

I would also like to see an awful lot more thanks for those women and men who pay a lot of tax. Instead I feel like the dog dirt of hte nation at times - that I must be dreadful or must evade tax. We could start with an email from HMRC or letter of thanks for every XYZ of tax people pay. All this time of 5 day working weeks ! Wow I have worked full time without a break since 1983 not even to have babies in and I still work on just about every day of the year at least some of the time so that is 6 or 7 days albeit the weekend dsys tend to be shorter.

If Corbyn could remove my obligation to pay income tax and NI and my £3600 a year council tax and inheritance tax and abolished stamp duty and instead imposed a £30k a year tax on my house I could accept that or if he reduce my tax/NI rate to a flat tax 20% fine but instead he proposes to take massive sums from higher earners and I already feel we are tax far far too highly.

I have seen my GP once in 12 years (I don't smoke or drink and have had one cold in the last year wihch obviously did not require NHS or any medical care). I am obviously one of the luckiest people in England and I do support the NHS like most Conservatives but we certainly waste a lot of money in the UK

When I was born we didn’t have central heating either. Lots of people don’t have it now.

What are you planning to do with your immense wealth @Xenia? Shrouds don’t have pockets.

But the big issues are not being discussed here, just people talking about not wanting to pay more tax! I don't want to pay more tax but I can't see how we improve public services without money - they have been starved of money for nearly 10 years and it shows!

I would also like to see an awful lot more thanks for those women and men who pay a lot of tax.

Xenia - interesting you should mention this as I had a similar conversation earlier. My general thoughts were that paying a high rate of tax should be seen as a good thing and something to aspire to. That would however require a massive culture change.

But Xenia wants to pay as little tax as possible and then get a love letter from HM Treasury for it.

Graham Norton’s the one I want to thank. His attitude is brilliant.

inews.co.uk/news/entertainment/graham-norton-pay-full-tax-507034

I do appreciate those paying the higher rate of tax. In fact I appreciate everyone who pays their taxes. It's the ones that don't pay their taxes that piss me off. Surely that also pisses off the higher rate tax payer - with possibly more reason even.

@Logjam, there are a few people here saying they don't resent taxation, even higher rates of taxation, BUT that they want it spent intelligently. How can that be so controversial?

No, we’d like to be able to leave it to our children. Except I don’t have any.

So my DH children will inherit as I’m significantly younger than him ( and by far the higher earner so he’s no sugar daddy) and have no kids.

Seriously though there are too many people in this country who feel entitled to have things provided for them.

Work should not be optional unless you can’t - in which case all help you need should be given. And can’t does not mean

• work too hard
• work inconvenient
• work un pleasant
• work not what I want

Ie you work unless you have a bloody good reason not to even if you are only as well off as on benefits. You then have an incentive to find better work.