to boycott the companies who are actively backing the tories?

[glinda]

Well, title says it all. 68 companies (or should I say, wealthy, over priviledged company bosses)have written to the Torygraph to back their old buddies. Fine. They are sticking with their mates but they will not have my business,

Ok GS.
Apparently I am being unreasonable to choose who I give my business to. So much for a free market ... I thought that was what you believed in?

All those signing this letter should be prepared to be interviewed about it in the media and so far only a few have stood up to do that. The question they should answer is has the position which they support been fully costed i.e. it's paid for through efficiency savings in year 1, but what about years 2 and 3? How are the Tories going to pay for their proposed tax cut? What do these business leaders think about the possibility of the Tories raising VAT? Would that affect sales of their products? Would that affect jobs in their businesses?

Business leaders should think very carefully before engaging in a general election campaign. They aren't politicians and have not been elected, so who are they really lobbying on behalf of? Oh yes, their shareholders and themselves/their own paypackets, not their employees clearly. The fact is that they are proposing cuts to public spending on services that we all rely on. Do they rely on the NHS, state schools, state pensions?? Well their employees do.

38 degrees have set up a letter (National Insurance, Mind your own business) to the business leaders if you want to tell any of them what you think. I've written to Justin King at Sainsburys. www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/contactbusinessl?js=true

JJ - yep, that's right.

No, you're being unreasonable if you think it will a) make any difference, or b) progress the argument in any way at all. I don't remember saying what I believe in.

If you don't like the Tories, vote for someone else. That's what voting is for.

Boycott if you like, but I doubt anyone will notice.

YANBU!!!!!! If you do not wish to support the tories, then a good way of doing that is to not support those that fund/support them.

I also will not be giving my money to these compaines now. even though that means no more Kurt Geiger.

How can it be called a tax cut?

If they don't implement labour policy of the increase it's not actually a cut is it? Just a non-rise?

I work for one of those companies whose boss has come out against the proposed NI rise. I have no idea whether he has done so because he is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, or because he has calculated the cost to our business of paying the higher rate of NI.

Some of these company bosses may be overpaid Tory sympathisers. Me and my colleagues certainly are not, and if you boycott any of the companies on the list then it won't be the fat cats who lose their jobs, it'll be people like me.

I am all for Labour normally as they are for the working class families but the last 5 years have been horrendous. All because of Labour. - Blair left alot of his shit to Gordon Brown and i think a Conservative Government could be what this country needs at the moment. We are not in the 80s no more and i am too young to remember the Thatcher years, i have been told about what she did to this country but things have changed since the 80s and if i was voting this year the Tories would get my vote.

Get Labour out i say!

Just curious -

do you personally pay NI Glinda?

CheekyVimtoGal - what people say about the Thatcher years is becoming more urban myth-like every day. People voted her in three times after all!

can anyone who has quoted her on this thread tell me what Thatcher actually did to this country

CVG, I am afraid that this says it all,
' i am too young to remember the Thatcher years'
For many, these years were pure hell.
I have not agreed with all of Labour's policies but what went before was so much worse and Labour have done many positive things (along with the mistakes).

PF - I have no desire to cause you and your family any harm.

Thatcher was the devil incarnate. She stole peoples' babies and ate them for breakfast.

Oh and a significant proportion of the country agreed with her.

Isn't Thatcher quoted somewhere as saying her greatest achievement was New Labour, implication being that if she'd introduced the policies nobody would have voted for them but basically Blair did the job for her and the masses fell for it because it was under the Labour banner ?

Yes they did, so she must have had some qualities in what she was proposing. BUT she did mess this country up by introducing stupid prices and charges like the prescription charges. If you look at the Conservatives 'What we stand for' i think they have some good choices of what they are proposing to do with some of the systems we have in place like recognising marriage in the tax system and backing couples in the benefits system and also intorducing more new health visitors to families who need them which i think is a good idea.

I think anyone who votes labour is daft this time round. Brown cant run a piss up in a brewery nevermind the chuffing country.

Catinthehat2 - Yes I pay NI and have since I left full time education, except when I was on maternity breaks.

Are unemployed people not entitled to a political viewpoint in your world?

If you work for a good company or you employ people then vote Tory.

If you are a workshy layabout, sponger off the state, or are in a union, then vote labour.

Simples.

Thatcher years so awful we left the country. Came back to see signs about a "cones hotline", John Major's legacy. Thought the UK had gone mad.

13 years of Labour - record increases in child benefit, extended maternity leave and pay, flexible working rules, Sure Start, record levels of investment in the NHS, waiting lists down in the NHS, infant class sizes restricted to 30, record investment in school building programme, package of support for the elderly (free tv licences, winter heating allowance, free bus passes etc.), could go on but am I boring you?

Because of the miners strikes of 84-85 my dad would kill me if he knew i was backing the tories lol he was a miner and the strike affected him and me as i was born in the middle of the strikes.

Seriousy though, Thatcher made many mistakes - her policies devastated many of the core industries in this country, her withdrawal of funding for science sent key research abroad, the right to buy scheme for council tenants ( which they themselves probably quite liked) was a disaster. It can't have all been bad, however or else she wouldn't have been Prime Minister for 11 years.

How many years has it been since Thatcher left power? Nearly 20 years. A whole generation. It's time this generation of voters and politicians started taking some responsibility for what's happened since then. It's a different world now.

Some people dont realise that Gaelicsheep. Some people think if the tories get in it'l be like Thatcher all over again but i dont think it will be

Thatcher made this country stronger, especially by spanking the Unions.

When Labour took over, the economy was at a generation high level of strength. Debt was down to a few billion.

We now owe hundreds of billions.

The only way forward is extreme measures. It's going to be painful!

But who got you here. Tory or Labour???

Well, you have to be super think to continue to vote Labour IMHO!

Tell me about it CVG. I've been tearing my hair out on here for weeks with the blinkered apparent majority who refuse to consider voting Tory because "they remember Thatcher".