David Cameron's speech - did anyone think he could just have turned the polls round?

[TheDullWitch]

That striding about without notes business was quite impressive. I did get bored though.

suey2 Alan Johnson was basically saying that Gordon Brown blew it on the election front by not delaring the election before the Conservative Party Conference got underway.

Just wanted to address the point that WendyWeber made about being around in the eighties - well I was. I agree, it wasn't good. That was why I voted for Labour in 1997.

But it isn't the eighties any more, I am reacting to events now, not those of thirty years ago. That is why I will vote Conservative in the next election because I believe their policies are what this country needs now.

I haven't heard anything to make me think the ethos of the party has changed much in 20 years though, cr.

Yes, that's the point at which our own opinions come into play I suppose, because I think they might be different. But I can see why you wouldn't too, I really did hate the last tory administration and was very very excited when Labour got in, in 1997. Perhaps it is the strength of disillusionment I have felt over the last ten years that has prompted my change of viewpoint.

Recent Tory party conference was a return to form surely, i.e. give big tax breaks to those who already have plenty of money.

Remember what Nicholas Ridley (remember him?) said was one of the virtues of the brlliant poll tax. That "a duke would pay the same as his gardener".

This splendid spirit is evidently alive and well in the contemporary Tory party.

If that's what you want, vote Tory.

If that's not what you want, erm, I give up...

Someone asked why anyone thought Tories would abolish the minimum wage. Because, um, that's what they did when they were in government before! Many industries had Wage councils which set minimum wages, the Tories got rid of them.

Labour's failure to ditch Tory policies in relation to the NHS and the rest of the public sector was a big disappointment - I work in local government.

I've never voted for my local Labour MP, but I probably will at the next general election. I would have voted for the previous one but was still registered to vote in my home city in 1997, not in London. Then he died, and I voted Socialist Alliance in the by-election and the 2001 general election, and Respect in 2005. However, I dislike Galloway even more than I dislike the leadership of the Labour Party, and I only voted not Labour because there was no danger in my constituency from Lib Dem/Tories.

I can't and won't defend current Labour leaders, I would have voted for John McDonnell if given the chance and was very disappointed not to have the opportunity.

FWIW i voted for the libdems in 1997.
RE the poll tax, I actually think that the basic premise was a good one- that everyone who can afford to, pays whether they own their own home or not. We should all have some investment in our local services IMHO. It was just incredibly badly introduced.(lots of rich renters in London so i don't see it as a form of regressive taxation at all) Incredibly pompous comment from the Tory. though, i agree.

I am not going to comment on the rest of your post, pius, because i think that the generalised attitude you have towards the tories and some tory voters attitudes towards labour voters has been discussed earlier on in the thread.

"It was just incredibly badly introduced"

Yeah, right. All it needed was a better spin doctor and we'd be paying it happily to this day.

It's a local tax. It needs to be earnings-related in some way. If not linked to pay then it has to be linked to property values - how else?

SOrry, I've not been here for days and I really want to answer aelita's point directed to me below which said this:
'PSCMUM, I'm curious to understand why you claim to despise faith schools (yet I think you said you went to the Oratory), love bog standard comps and yet seem to hold Tony Blair up on a pedestal for avoiding his local bog standard comp and sending his kids halfway across London to attend a faith school, which just so happened to be one of the best state ones available? Oh, and I don't think you addressed the question of his bringing in private tutors. The Blair kids have also done pretty damn well in terms of work placements due to the influence of their parents. To hold this family up as a shining example of an MP's unprecedented moralistic educational stance is just fucking laughable. '

Right:

• yes I think faith schools are divisive and socially unprogressive, and yes, I went to one. This is how I know.

• yes I love bog standard comps and this is why my children will go to them. I think they are the way forward - if everyone went to them, schools would be so much the better. And if you feel yor local school is not good enough for your kids its not good enough for anyone's kids, and so we should all send our kids there together and work together to make it better. I know this is much much harder with secondary, but certaonly with primary its very possible, providing, of course, the school want you involved, which I do accept is not always the case.

• and I in no way but Tony on a pedestal! I was simply, (as I have said about 20 times on this thread), responding to Cammelia saying 'all Labour MPs send their kids to private school' that no, they don't, for eg Tony Blair. I know that the Oratory is not his hearest one, you have to be religious to get in, blah blah. I know all of that. And I don't know anything about their private tutors but they were pretty standard at our school so I wouldn't be surprised. But I was not defendning ANY of it, I was just saying, Tony Blair's kids did not go to private school. That is all. Full stop. End of. etc etc. !

• I wasn't holding it up as an unprecednetn moralistic stance on education, I was saying, which is absolutely accurate, that he is the first PM not to send his kids to private school.

And Desiderata, nothing of what you've said re Ken Livingstone being an anti-semite makes me think he is an anti-semite. I agree with everything he said. He is just stating facts. Just because someone comments on the holocaust to say something other than 'it was so terrible' does not make them an anti-semite. It was truly terrible industrialised mass murder and we must be allowed to comment on it and analyse it.

WW i am not talking about spin. I am talking about fairness. 1/3 of london's population changes every year. There are many rich people who rent. They should pay for local services. I disagree that my parents who own their own home but are both pensioners should pay a lot of money where an investment banker in london on a 6-7 figure salary should pay nothing.

What makes you think a renter doesn't pay it?

I was talking about the poll tax being a good idea because domestic rates were levied on the house owner not the renter. That you were exempt from the poll tax if you were a low earner or a student. So the amount paid was not to be solely bourne by the owner, but by ability to pay.

suey 2 of your parents are pensioners on a low income they are entitled to council tax benefit - the oddest benefit in history, on the one hand the council will send them a council tax bill, on the other hand, the council will send them ( on reqiest) a council tax benefit application form, which if they are on a low income, they can use to get all or at least some of their council tax paid.

I (shock!) agree with you anyway, not re poll tax but re council tax being unfair. I like local income tax. I think its the fairest.

i am just not sure about a local income tax. I think it would be ok if it was truly local- ie you pay for services in your area, not yet another way the south east subsidises the rest of the country whilst having the worst local services themselves.
TBH, i would much rather the whole tax system was simplified- someone early on in the thread made the comment about no tax until £25K. In principle i think that is an excellent idea. It should help people get out of the benefits trap (and by that i mean they can't afford to work) and help to recreate an aspirational society.
It is the lack of transparency that i find frustrating. It is all the same melting pot. And the number of taxes which cost more to administer than actually bring in in revenue i totally disagree with.
But then i am a natural tory voter and believe in minimal government and interference. Not to have a tax system (or any system) so complicated that you have to swell the size of the civil service so much that the tax we pay goes to the administrators pay, not to improving services.

suey2 the civil service is being drastically cut despite the increasing complexity of everything. The "administrators" you object to are little ordinary people like me, on salaries below the national average, who also pay tax.

I think no tax til £25k is a good idea also. Totally ludicrous that people on low incomes pay any tax at all. I think poor people should not pay any tax, and rich people - not just non doms, though I'd cripple them if I had the chance!, but people with the huge salaries really need to be paying a LOT more tax. Once you earn £1m a year - I mean, how much of that can you really need and cannot afford to share.

Students and low earners weren't exempt from poll tax, no one was. In the time it was introduced, I was a student, unemployed and on a low wage at different times and was always going to have to pay 20% of it.

Council tax is levied on residents of a property including tenants in whatever income bracket. Rich renters paying more? No problem at all, but there are also tenants on low incomes living in housing association and council properties which are worth quite a lot because of where they happen to be (for example).

Council tax is also rather stupidly banded - I have some sympathy for people on average income or below living in a house which just happens to be highly banded, but is it fair that the top band CT is only 2.5 times that of the bottom band? I work in an area with a significant number of multi million pound properties.

Last year the newly elected political leadership of my employer - Lib Dem/Tory coalition - decided to freeze the CT. This though was at the expense of many people on the borough who just fell through the means testing safety net (which was established by the Tories by the way) for services. Charges for many social services such as home care and childcare, hitting disabled people, pensioners with modest savings or company pensions (ie above income support) and ordinary working parents (many earning way less than £20K) were subjected to increases of 10-20%. That's what Tory policies mean to me at whatever level of government.

I don't think those of us in the south east pay for worse services - I think many London councils under various political controls actually get quite good services compared to some people in rural areas/small towns. I've come to appreciate what my Labour council does provide and wish that central government, of whatever political shade, would stop attacking local councils in the way that the Labour government has continued to do. And that's not just as a council worker who has to pay council tax (we can be sacked for not doing so or for not paying any other money due to our local authority!) I also say it as a new mum who's discovered what's provided for babies/kids and there's some great services there but the money is unfortunately being cut back (I really missed out on Surestart). And my issues with local government as a service user or wouldbe one don't end with the Tories, council nursery care has gone up 9% this year, making the current rate 50% of my take home pay (which is just over that 25K figure, I don't consider myself poor).

elkiedee I thought that council tax was based on 2 earners in a household. When i was a student, because i shared a house with 4 other students, we paid no council tax at all.

and to clarify, i agree that local services are good at present, because they are ring fenced for the local council. My worry is that if it is a local income tax, the majority of money would go outside the borough and leave us with the same situation in london that we otherwise have with health, education and transport i.e. we subsidise other areas so they can have far superior services to our own.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the richer areas should subsidise the poorer, but only to the extent that the quality of services we get are the same.

Council tax - 1 adult household can get a 25% discount. 1 adult in a household with other non-earning adults will be liable for whole amount with no discount, I think! Benefits and very low incomes help qualify people for CT benefit, however, it is very underclaimed - 30% of pensioners don't get the benefits they're entitled to and this rises to 60% for homeowners - CTB accounts for most of that. I think this is worth bearing in mind when councils make politically motivated cuts in welfare rights work while claiming to be cutting council tax for those on low incomes (never mind the also cutting tax again for the substantial proportion of very wealthy people in the area in question who can afford its high to enormous property prices, and who don't see why they should be paying for social services or all the unglam stuff councils have to do).

I think tax credits are the oddest benefit in history, why would the inland revenue give you money?

Why not just take less tax

Cammelia, that is effectively what they do. They are like that to encourage people to work. And they're not actually doing a bd job of it.

And suey2 - the local income tax I agree with. I think the money should stay in the local area the same way council tax does now, but it would be much fairer to work it out on income rather than property price. Property prices certainly where we live in London are so skewed, so its totally unfair at the moment.

And council tax - try being 1 working person in a 5 bed house share with 4 students...you're liable to pay the whole lot! Well you were about 8 years ago in Barnet. Not sure if they;ve sortedf out this lunacy yet!

olala yes I know that schweetie

But taking less income tax has same effect plus costs less to administrate

Its all just a political sop you know

NOt sure taking less tax will have the same effect in terms of encouraging people back to work though. I know it means you end up with the same pounds and pence, but some people need spoon feeding / baby sitting sorry, serious amounts of support, encouragement and reassurance that they can afford to go back to work, and they have the ability to do so also, that I really agree with tax credits, as you get a letter, stating in black and white, that you will be better off, and by how much, if you work. It requires no knowldge of tax brackets, or how it all works. Its just plain and simple in a letter AND it entitles you to lots of other stuff also - free dentis, prescriptions, subsidised nurseries etc. I've just been at my dd's new nursery today, totally gorgeous place, huge garden, fab staff, and if you're on tax credits it is about 20p. OR something. You know what I mean!