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

[lottieandmia]

?

Or are we more likely to have another coalition?

Britain's finances have not improved since the government took office. The debt has continued rising and each year we have continued to spend more than we earn, this includes the government which has not been restrained in spending money despite statements to the contrary and people, us, who are saving less and borrowing more to fund the current increase in spending. That really is the long and the short of it. The government is funding a housing bubble in the South East to bring on a feel good factor at the expense of many others with older children who come back from uni. with a debt the size of house prices in North Shields.

There has been no change in mentality in government at all. Policies are still short term and designed to keep bums on green leather seats. Don't get me started on printing money ...

I agree with you about the housing, especially as I live in a currently very beautiful rural area that is to be sacrificed to create houses that it doesn't even seem clear that we actually need in our county. Very cynical ploy by the govt.

TTT...THAT is the most stupid, ill informed comment I have read on these boards, and I've read a few.

There has been a massive restructuring of our debt profile...if Labour supporters want Osbourne, who inherited a £157 bil over spend from Labour to CUT another £108 billion (currently) without whinging on little micro cases of welfare, THEN TELL HIM.

Otherwise the national debt will grow each year. D'uh.

"No changing of policies".........Labour thought that INCREASING the fat 100% tax funded State and TAX RISES was the way to 'growf', not boosting the Private Sector that pays for it - Osbourne and anyone with a clue, had the opposite view - so where would have been now under Labour?

"Housing bubble".....if Labour had built more than just over 100,000 homes a year, before inviting in 2.2 million new migrants and allowing bank mortgage lending to go up by 5x from 1997 - THERE WOULD NOT BE A HOUSING BUBBLE, then or now.

HappyMum - why are you always banging on about the welfare state? It was Thatcher who said 'give them benefits' when the original problem of people losing their livelihoods began.

Labour introduced tax credits to address the problem of child poverty which WAS a real problem in the 80s. The thing they did wrongly was to make it payable to 90% of families I suppose

In other words you agree with all the facts I've put forward. The national debt as a proportion of GDP is still rising.

The government realised soon after they came into office that their policies weren't working. Instead, they encouraged printing a shed load of money and kept up an annual overdraft. They've pushed the benefits cuts so much to give themselves some camoflage for being exactly the same as we had before. I remember at the height of the last housing bubble, it was the Tory housing adviser, Kirsty can't-remember-her-name, who was pushing for a reduction in stamp duty. Did I mention 'Help to buy (a bubble)' yet?

If you have a budget deficit each year the national debt will rise; and what is real/sustainable GDP, Labour's declining Private Sector tax receits/investment, the then 1 million new Public sector workers and Quangocracy on £100 k salaries consuming, with £157 bil plus annual overspends, with record high consumption and tax receipts on speculation and debt?

When the coalition weans the economy off of that GDP debt high and Europe our main export market crashes, GDP falls, but every policy brought in has worked - including unblocking the mortgage log jam so people can move if the want/have to.

Brown started QE printing money, numbnuts, the portion of 'right to buy' in new buyers is relatively low.

Tories who had a Flat Stamp Duty of 1% didn't have a housing bubble, but then again they didn't have 2.2 million new citizens to house over so few years.

Tories are always telling Labour to cut penal taxes, especially if either a pretence to 'correct' something or it raises less money than before.

Labour produced 'the wrong type' of GDP as it was not sustainable and was going to cause huge imbalance problems at the first recession, never mind one caused by a financial collapse and fall of the £60-£100 bil annual City tax receipts.

Hiding behind 'debt to GDP' on that structure is disingenuous or ignorant, as it HAD to change from 2010.

Labour did not build enough homes in the boom times, any argument on that?.

Passed over around 2 million people needing social housing, according to Shelter, any argument on that?.

Yet Osbournes 'right to buy' and not Labour's supply/demand problems relating DIRECTLY to their policies? Don't make me larf.

You're rude and maybe because of that I feel obliged to correct you. The debt does not automatically rise if there is a budget deficit. This also depends on interest rates and growth. Most of the money printing has been done under the current government even after the PM said in his speech at the party conference before the election that he would stop it.

People should be allowed to put opposing views on here without receiving insults.

TTT...there is so much misinformation on here, if I over reacted and/or I am factually incorrect, I will apologize to you - I have been called far worse by people who were incorrect and LOSING the debate.

Based on the definition of GDP, and the pre 2010 structure of government spending £157 bil more than what we earn, very little business investment, exports decimated by the 10-year decline in manufacturing and growing weakness of our largest export market AND Consumption that had seen Household debt rise from 97% of income in 1997 to 168% in early 2008 - how will that 'growth' formula reduce the national debt, rather than increase it?

How does low interest rates lower our national debt, other than our benchmark 10-year Gilt yields were far higher under 'what deficit?' Brown, than 'the man with a plan' Osbourne?

The £175 bil (or is it £200 bil?) QE was I believe done during Labours term, but if a government comes in with a £157 billion annual deficit and the bills are still being paid, we WOULD be printing more money, unless we sell the remainder of our gold.

I'm not a moderator, but isitmebut you make good points but would benefit from altering your style a little bit. Just try and make it a little less personal - it'll help advance your argument - which I broadly support.

That said, regardless of the facts most people won't understand the arguments as well as some here Labour still aren't trusted on the economy. I recently watched Question Time and Diane Abbott I have to confess to not being able to stand the sight of that woman said that (in relation to the pension reforms) the Tories were "simply bribing people with their own money" Labour though have a reputation for bribing people with other people's money.

Hi Contrarian...since your last post here, all I've seen is tumble weed pass it by.lol

Thank you for your advice and I will try and become a pussy cat, using ttosca as my example (ahem).

Seriously, I tried that on the MP 2nd jobs over the last few days, asking others nicely for their facts to back up their opinions and apparently I'm still the 'know nuffin, about nuffin' overbearing ogre...I can't win either way.

Shrek.

That's o.k. People move on from these debates - I don't mind.

I wasn't suggesting you become a pussy cat, just that you put your reasoned arguments across without necessarily making it personal (even if some people are incapable of hearing the truth).

Perhaps you won't win, but keep fighting the fight, and expressing a contrary opinion (that's what I try to do). Take comfort that Mumsnet isn't representative of society as a whole. It seems to have a lefty metropolitan vibe - which is fine if at times misguided.

When all is said and done, we cannot, as a country, continue to live beyond our means.

'We cannot continue to live beyond our means'

In that case why is the government building a new rail network? I just don't buy that line. It's all about punishing the undeserving poor.

'We cannot continue to live beyond our means'

Bwahahaha!

Yeah - one of the richest countries in the world can't afford to pay for tuition fees, or social security payments for cancer sufferers.

Give me a break. Where do you think all our wealth has gone? Social security? Does it look to you like we live in a socialist paradise? Do we appear to you to operate like one of the nordic countries?

Is that why we have such great social conditions in the UK? You know... like the second largest wealth inequality in the West, tens of thousands of people using foodbanks, sick people dying because they've been denied their rightful benefit payments...

Your money goes into paying of the national debt. Public sector net debt was £1,231.7 billion last year, equivalent to 76.6% of GDP.

So for every pound we net as a country, 76p is owed.

ttosca…..SO THERE IS YOUR PROBLEM, you still believes that we are a rich nation; that was before Gordon Brown’s stewardship of our economy, silly.
www.taxpayersalliance.com/economics/2009/09/new-book-reveals-the-total-cost-of-gordon-browns-mishandling-of-the-economy-as-3-trillion-or-3000000.html

Brown threw vast sums of money at the NHS — rising from £33?billion a year when Labour came to power in 1997, to £96?billion when they left in 2010.

Yet the standards of care and mortality rates of 14 NHS trusts, 11 of which were so bad they are being put into special measures – how many died at the Mid Staffs Trust – how many budgets were screwed by Brown’s Public Finance Initiative’s overpaying the Private Sector for decades to come?

This represented an annual real terms increase of a breathtaking 7 per cent per year.

However, the money was often poorly directed (£20?billion, notoriously, was wasted on a flawed computer system), and leadership and management were so poor at almost every level that it was seldom spent sensibly or effectively. Most went on wages and bureaucracy. By 2011, as bureaucracy mushroomed, 1.43 million people worked in the English NHS, of whom only 50.5 per cent were clinically qualified.

That compared with a total of 1.06 million, including just 180,000 office staff, when Labour came to power in 1997. By comparison, the number of actual beds fell from 194,000 in 1997 to 147,000 in 2011.

And what about the standards of care and mortality rates of 14 NHS trusts, 11 of which were so bad they are being put into special measures – how many died at the Mid Staffs Trust – how many budgets were screwed by Brown’s Public Finance Initiative’s overpaying the Private Sector for decades to come?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2363808/Labours-NHS-denial-machine-Experts-verdict-ministers-covered-problems-failing-hospitals-thousands-died.html

And yet in cancer care, England's coalition ran NHS still appears to perform better than the Labour ran Welsh NHS.

Welsh cancer patients flock to England for treatment because they are being forced to wait weeks for life-saving scans

• A decade ago 3,471 crossed the border for treatment, now it is 15,450
• Movement is fuelled by lack of access to the National Cancer Drugs Fund
• Half of Welsh patients wait more than six weeks for vital cancer scans
• The figure for England is 1 per cent

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586622/Welsh-cancer-patients-flock-England-treatment-forced-wait-weeks-life-saving-scans.html

In ttoscas world, every cancer sufferer’s situation is ALL the coalitions fault and NONE of those using food banks smoke, drink alcohol, or have a better TV set than I do.

Just think if Brown hadn’t blown all the money on a wasteful fat State, with a £170 billion Quangocracy, how much money COULD be spent on those that really need help now.

We need to start living within our means, as a nation, rather than keep banging on about how we are one of the richest nations in the world when that is patently not the case anymore. At some point politicians can't offer any more freebies to entice voters because there's nothing more to give. All they can offer is either small government low taxes or big government high taxes. And I believe given that choice, most people will opt for the former.

Some people like to think there is no other choice than to leave very vulnerable and disabled people with no support. Easier that way isn't it?

We really need to disabuse ourselves of this notion that we're a rich country. I hate to talk the country down, but we're certainly not rich.

We spend more on our national debt than we should. If you considered the public finances in proportional terms (with regards to income and expenditure) in the context of a household budget, you'd be shocked.

With regards to the HS2 (I'm still on the fence as to whether it's a good idea or not - probably 60/40 against) it is at least investment - and I mean that in the proper sense, rather than the Gordon Brown sense (which actually meant "spending")

Lastly, apart from medical students (and a handful of other instances) Why should the taxpayer meet the cost of tuition fees?

UKIP will do very well and of course the Tories will not get in with a majority.

Cameron is not popular for many reasons, and in particular with those who used to vote for him or who were members.

Blair and his Labour chums betrayed the people with mass immigration and buggered up the economy, I hope they do not get any sniff of power!

lottieandmia...….may I ask, is it socialist ignorance or some kind of mental illness that makes you and others continually insist the Conservatives exist to “leave the very vulnerable and disabled people with no support’ – yet try your very best through flagship policies, including an extra 2.5 million new citizen sharing public services and a rubbish education - to force welfare/benefits dependency on them?

!n your world neglecting/killing cancer patients by creasing the NHS budget by a factor of 3, but spending most of it on new administrators and salaries (not nurses) is fine, yet they have far less of a chance to even get to the recovery stage.

In your socialist world of the taxpayer money tree, every single benefit/welfare claimant in the country got a 5-star service under Labour - and after 13-years without checks/reforms, there were no false claims and budget pressures overloading the whole system - and diverting money from where it COULD have gone. Well here is one simple reform that shows the fairness of the Labour welfare state, both on the taxpayers and those that needed more help.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9963012/900000-choose-to-come-off-sickness-benefit-ahead-of-tests.htmll

Darling said pre 2010 that ‘he would cut more than Thatcher’ and for years since the election Labour have said MORE needs to be cut from welfare/benefits, but as usual very short of detail; it helps keep their voters happy and deflects their incompetence on to the Conservatives.

lottie before getting upset with any government for leaving vulnerable people with no support, you should be furious with the dishonest people who are defrauding the system. It is those that leave less in the pot for people who really need it and makes getting the help even harder as they try to weed out the piss-takers.

Even if they are not really consciously doing it...

In the case of disabled children, someone I know used to work in healthcare in a practice that served a poorer area. She regularly saw people who knew ideally you needed 3 children, one, at least, of which had a disability, to get the 'best' benefits. Asthma was a good one. They knew which symptoms the child should have, it couldn't really be tested for. These children never showed any symptoms other than in front of the parents. They were happy for them to be on drugs etc just to get that extra money. (One of the main reasons that she stopped doing that job, it upset her too much)

Those who think it is acceptable to live a life on benefits...are dependent and they are not necessarily 'bad people'. Basically they are doing what they think is best for their family...

These are attitudes that have developed over many, many years. And there is a mentally that is hard to get over - a mentally that the welfare state isn't where you turn in absolute desperation, a last resort - it is an expectation....

My DP has problems with his knees, works on his feet, has had an operation on his knee, takes painkillers more or less daily. He has done everything he can to 'cure' them - he isn't overweight, exercises regularly to strengthen the supporting muscles etc. Once (when he was having a bad day) he wondered about if he could stop working, claim benefits. He shouldn't have to go to work in pain most days should he - surely that isn't right?

We have savings so he wouldn't be eligible. Now I could say that was unfair, he has worked hard for his money (probably why his knees are knackered). Then again it is his safety blanket...(and I don't mean that lightly, it is a deep psychological thing).
He doesn't 'need' financial support - he could live off his savings until they'd all gone. His choice is work or spend his savings ...
He works ...and it is really hard sometimes (maybe he should look more at retraining, but has never done anything but physical work).

If he didn't have the savings he would be less inclined to...would you blame him? I think the majority of people would feel sympathy for someone in that situation (if they didn't have the savings).

But I don't think the welfare state can afford to do that and look after everyone who truly 'needs' help - has no other option at all...

Ironmaiden .... Re Cameron any government that has to sort out major economic and social problems by cutting back the overgrown money tree is unpopular at time - apparently history is kinder and you get a State funeral for solving problems, not creating them.

Re Ukip..personally I think that anyone who feels the need to vote for a party without any domestic policies is very sad for them and the country after 2015 - and could not bring myself to peddle a party with no policies, insisting they are a solution to anything within the UK.

As per your sneer re the misguided souls who have fallen for Dr Nigel Feelgood’s political snake oil – tell me more about this;

“I can't campaign for Ukip any longer, says party's 'future face' Alexandra Swann over concerns with immigration stance”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rising-ukip-star-alexandra-swann-protests-her-own-partys-stance-on-immigration-9244746.html

“A woman who was heralded as the “future face” of Ukip says she can no longer face campaigning for the party because of their illiberal stance on immigration.”

“Alexandra Swann was supposed to represent the party's new, younger membership when she publicly defected from the Conservatives at Ukip's spring conference in 2012. Nigel Farage introduced her to a jubilant party faithful, boasting: "I'm very pleased to say that the Swann has migrated to Ukip".

“However, it seems the Swann has migrated again. She told The Independent: "I can't bring myself to campaign for them."

“The party's increasingly incendiary rhetoric on immigration has pushed Ms Swann, 25, away. She says: "The focus moved to immigration. It was difficult with the anti-gay marriage stuff. Now so much of their argument is anti-immigration which didn't sit well with me.”

Maybe when Ukip publish their domestic policies in 2015 for all to see, rather than swan around having dig at other parties policies, Ms Swann will have something else other than immigration to focus on.