Do you think the Tories will get a majority in 2015?

[lottieandmia]

?

Or are we more likely to have another coalition?

Contrarian….I’m still on the fence myself, lol.

TTT’s ……..But then it wasn’t the Eaton crowd that got us into this Labour Oxbridge mess, but on a ‘big picture’ basis, seems to be getting us out of it.

“The International Monetary Fund raised its forecasts for U.K. economic growth for the second time this year, predicting Britain will have the fastest expansion among developed nations.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/imf-sees-u-k-leading-g-7-economic-growth-in-2014.html

Economic growth doesn't mean squat unless people have jobs and can afford to pay for housing, food, and the necessities of life.

GDP, growth, etc. are bourgeois economic indicators. They indicate the rate of profits for businesses.

They don't indicate how well the population is doing. The public are thousands of pounds less well off than they were a decade ago. They are less secure in their jobs. They have less opportunity to 'get on the property ladder'. They have less disposible income.

TTT’s ……..But then it wasn’t the Eaton crowd that got us into this Labour Oxbridge mess, but on a ‘big picture’ basis, seems to be getting us out of it.

It was precisely the Eton crown that got us in to this mess - it was the finance sector and the rest of their rich chums.

And the Tory scum are not getting us out of anything.

It has taken the UK 4 years to get out of a recession -- the longest recession of any postwar period. And even now recovery is yet again based in artificially inflated house prices. Another bubble waiting to pop.

But TT - who got us into the mess in the first place - no more boom and bust?
Who let the house prices get so inflated in the first place - it wasn't the Tories - my house has tripled in value (supposedly) from 2001 -2007...I should be really happy but I'm not...
This was a cheap house (bought to suit our circumstances at the time) - now it is out of the price range of most locals and if we sold for what we paid for it a) we couldn't afford anywhere else and b) some property developer/cash sale would buy and have it back on the market in 2 weeks at the triple price...
And I can't see a way to get us out of the mess without people being in negative equity etc - people bought and are still buying at inflated prices
I don't agree with what the Tories are doing at the moment either with housing though...

House prices is one thing that makes me furious with Labour ..(along with selling the gold and taxes on pensions) they could have controlled rising property prices ...but didn't - if anything they encouraged it - swept up in the 'we all feel rich'.
Result of that is that such a high percentage of people's income needs to be spent on somewhere to live -so they have less money to spend on other things - like food - which in turn has encouraged the production and consumption of cheap, cheaply produced food with minimal animal welfare standards and pesticides and fertilizers... pointless bringing in the NMW - it might be three times the hourly rate it was when it was introduced but so is the cost of housing - no-one is better off...

(but not as angry as I was and still am over Iraq)

ttosca….the financial crisis was Brown’s, starting with the regulatory tripartite of the financial sector he formed, I have explained it to you about 5-times now and you cannot challenge those facts – I know as a ‘class warrior’ you need to blame someone else, but Brown and the FSA he formed have owned up to it, so do get over it.

metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

As for the housing problems/bubble, I’ve given my current opinion on the last post on this thread on he News board.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1977704-UK-Interest-Mortgage-Rates-WHO-S-in-control?pg=2

You do talk tosh Isitme. Those articles do no such thing as lay the blame for the 'financial crisis' at Brown's door. He talks of regrets about not controlling the banks in the UK firmly enough (when the Tory pig troughers were wanting much less control btw) - I am pretty sure the rest of the sane world looks to world business cyclical behaviours, the collapse of the sub-prime market in the US, Leahman Bros. etc.

So do please get over yourself.

ttosca…for decades class warrior dinosaurs blamed Thatcher for all the industrial problems caused by the 1970’s Labour/trade union destruction of our industrial base – and now blame the Conservative for the ‘great recession’, started under Labour’s watch and enhanced by Labour’s financial recession – so as recessions unusually last a year or two, of course it takes years to come out of the damage done within such a recession, when the banks weren’t functioning/lending properly.

What was Labour’s solution; lower VAT for 2-years and ‘more of the same’ throwing money at their Quangocracy – what a recipe for Private Sector growth. Lol

With the IMF again saying we are the fastest growing economy if the G7 thanks to Osbournes pro business reforms, THAT FILTERS THROUGH TO HIGHER WAGES, just being seen, to hit government figures over coming months.

“(Reuters) - British employers are raising the salaries they offer to new permanent staff at the fastest rate in nearly seven years as they struggle to fill vacancies, a survey showed on Tuesday.”

uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/uk-britain-economy-employment-idUKBREA361ZQ20140408

“The figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation suggest Britain's strong economic recovery last year is finally translating into higher pay.”

“The REC said its monthly survey showed that average salaries for permanent staff were up by the biggest amount since July 2007, though wage growth for temporary staff slowed slightly.”

"Worsening candidate shortages mean that the number of people available to fill both temporary and permanent jobs is falling at the sharpest rate in nearly a decade," he added.”

Good god I hope not. What else would they fuck up?

I notice also there Isitmebut all of those 'evidences' are very highly speculative - survey, suggestions etc. But of course does nothing in addressing the cost of living crisis nor the acute differences in wealth and income.

Contrarian - I think you are right that some people vote tory secretly. But to get a majority this time, they will have to do better, not the same or worse, than last time. And they have pissed off an awful lot of people.

So pans who do you blame for the out of control property price increases in the noughties?
And that is a massive contributor to the 'cost of living' crisis...

so unlucky you have a reading and comprehension problem?

Hopefully the Tories will get in. There is still a huge global economic problem.

Labour has never left power having cut employment, the Tories have.

But not the people who vote lottieandmia - the Tories haven't pissed them off and that's what counts.

I wonder how those who do vote Tory genuinely feel about how their policies are impacting on sick and disabled people? There is lots of evidence that they are causing severe hardship and misery amongst this group. I just don't know how that is reconciled in the minds of those who broadly support cuts to benefits and services..

Don't get me wrong, I blame Labour for a lot of wasted money and opportunities too. The way house prices were allowed to spiral out of control was indeed irresponsible. However, there is no doubt in my mind that some Tory policies have been just plain discriminatory and nasty.

For as long as the alternative to Dave and George is Ed and Ed, yes, I think the Tories will get a majority. Ed Milliband just has not got what it takes to be PM.

Sorry Pans - lost me - maybe you have to be clearer? What has my reading and comprehension to do with rising house prices in the noughties?
Did Gordon do anything to stop it? Did he do anything to curb borrowing, people living on credit? Have I missed it?

I'm not an economist but I could see it coming ...only thing I am surprised about is that house prices didn't fall a hell of a lot more... (won't be surprised if they don't crash even further in the future).
I choose not to buy a house in 2006-7 (just before the crash) even though we really needed more space - I also encouraged my partner to sell his business (sold Apr 2007) ...
Labour have to take responsibility (which I thought they had - but you don't) for at least some of the mess - or they will never be trusted...
And why did Gordon sell the gold? Like taking your gold chain to the pawn shop when you don't have too - much better holding on to it for when you might actually really need it....

'I wonder how those people who do vote tory genuinely feel about how their policies are impacting on sick and disabled people'

I think that, unfortunately for a lot of people disability is something that happens to other people and they don't particularly care. A lot of people vote according to how things affect them directly and don't think about disabled people.

I was raised in a tory voting family who fell for it's flawed ideology of all you need to do is work hard, it's that simple and if you're poor it's your own fault. It's very easy to think that when you've been lucky and had opportunities that others do not. You would not believe how much my parents have shifted their opinions since my disabled daughter was born and they could see first hand that disability can happen to anyone. At the last election, neither of them voted tory for the first time ever.

Lottie They have, but I think that by the time the election comes, the country will be in a very different place. The lectorate don't really have that long a memory.

I personally think that the coallition have got more right than wrong. They've by no means been perfect, but on the whole, I think they're what the country need.

lottie I think you are right. People do see sickness and disability as something that happens to other people (until they are personally affected and then it's a different story of course!). I just don't think there have been enough 'real stories' out there in the media to catch peoples attention and appeal to whatever empathy is left in British society.

There is no doubt that Britain looks 'better on paper' after the coalition but you don't have to delve far to find out what damage is being done under the surface to create the shiny statistics that they want you to read.

Coalition is the key word though isn't it? The Tories would have pushed through more of their agenda had they got a majority. If they were not in coalition with the lib dems we would have seen more of their unpleasant policies by now IMO. So it's not really possible to vote for the same as what we have now.

Sorry that was to contrarian.

But yes wrt disability, people are not that interested. And we are in the minority. It's a learning curve when you discover that as a disabled child's advocate it will be down to you and you alone to fight for what they need as it is not readily available. It doesn't bother me so much but I would never vote for the Tories, partly because my disabled child will always be invisible to them.

David Cameron's experience is not really comparable to most parents of a disabled child.

I'm not sure that things would look radically different under a Tory government rather than the coalitiion we have. Clegg ended up spending his magic beans on electoral reform, ratherher than tuition fees.

I just struggle to buy this image of the Tory's being the nasty party. I tend to think of running the country in terms of running my own life: There are lots of things I'd like to do, but becasue of constraints (be they financial, academic, geographical) I can't. I think I read somewhere that the govt. were looking to put people in charge of their own budgets. Would that not be useful?

The policies may seem tough, but a lot of people in Britain are still blind as to what is going on in the world. Regardless of who wins the election, it's probably never going to be as good here in the UK as it was or seemed to be six or ten years ago. Not in our lifetimes. We were living in a kind of fantasy world then, a lot of us (and I count myself in that group).

This could well be as good as it gets again. The new reality. I was chatting to a distant family member who's a professor of economics in the States. He told me not to be deceived by apparent improvements in the UK finances.

You can tax one group more or less to try and balance it out, but you can't override the basic problem that it is not sustainable to run a welfare state of the size we once had.

There is only question you need ask yourself when voting which is would they vote for me?

If there are little or no women at the head of a party, they will not get my vote, otherwise you are just selling yourself short.

The welfare state got hugely out of hand when Labour were in and needed radical reform. It should always be there to provide the basics to people in need but it changed to supporting people's lifestyle choices and that's where it all went wrong.

Then of course it's all the big bad governments fault that they now are expected to work etc. Few seem to take personal responsibility for their own situation.

Learning to budget, seeing work pays etc are what our children and their children need to do to break the cycle. We all have budgets and can't have everything we want in life but that's just life.