I won't be voting Labour because

[PanicMode]

next year they will be spending more on debt repayments than education, and that's just one example.

From a £6bn deficit in 1997 to £167 bn now....

Oh, and the only new idea (reduction of stamp duty) came from the Tories in the first place.

All those thinking of voting Labour, please read Squandered or The Rotten State of Britain before letting these financially illiterate numpties back in.

Just lifted this from the budget website.

The 50 per cent rate of income tax will come in next month, but only affects those with earnings over £150,000 a year.

I'd LOVE to pay 50% TAX, it would mean I was paying less than 50% on the first £149,999

(I know, I know, you have to pay NI as well, but the same principle applies)

I see he hit cider drinkers hard as well.

DF - we now have the highest average tax rate in Europe so I have plenty of sympathy for anyone who feels like they're being fleeced.

VicarInaTuTu;

Re; The pit closures.....what you need to remember is that Neil Kinnock (Labour leader at the time of the miners dispute) distanced himself from the strike, critizing Arthur Scargill every step of the way.....

Scargill always maintains that had Kinnock (and the Labour party) backed the miners more, the outcome would have been very different.

Can someone please link to somewhere showing that we pay more taxes than the rest of Europe?

abetadad - not sure exactly what your point is there - so tories bribed people with cheap houses? thats not exactly a selling point for them is it.

what did it leave for the rest of us when social housing was needed? sod all. 18 years ago my husband lost his job, i had a 3 month old baby and we had to move in with hubbys parents, 3 of us shared a room, we couldnt get a council house for love nor money. i think under tory gvmts the country was ransacked. all that was good was pillaged to line peoples pockets and, i can hand on heart say that if i had been lucky enough to get a council house i would not have bought one, no matter how cheap it was, because nothing has ever been built to replace them. In the end we had to rent until we had the deposit to buy.

the last recession was far worse and that was under a tory government.

under the labour gvt i can honestly say ive never been so well off. i got help with nursery and child care with working tax credits, child tax credits, none of which i got with a tory government.

i am about to join the police, so my husband and myself will be earning a reasonable wage for the first time ever, but nothing in the tory policies would be to my families benefit.
i will gain nothing under them. so why should i vote for them?
ive benefited more under the labour government.
It does make me wonder who is the average user of this site - is the media portrayal correct?

Because I am a stupid and/or greedy cunt.

Perfectly good reasons...

I found this but it only relates to single workers and I think it includes employers' contributions too.

Bloody complicated figures to compile though.

My point is that Labour voters voted in droves for council houses to be sold off because they wanted the security of owning their own home at less than market price. They ditched their principles out of self interest then went back to voting Labour again.

Your position was that you could not get a cheap house to live in. The older generation of Labour voters enjoyed the benefit you needed.

Selling off council housing would have been OK had LAs been allowed to use the proceeds to build more social housing. IIRC they were barred from doing so.

and im still not getting your point?

yes a whole generation of people benefited from social housing and then bought up almost the entire stock - thats people (wankers maybe) but the government of the day made that possible when it should not have been, then didnt do anything to replace them.

some people are open to bribery. still not sure what the point is though. is that the only way the tories could get in? shame.

Vicar - you said you did not like Thatcher because:

"sold all our social housing (council houses)
were generally greedy bastards so the rich got richer and the poor got poorer."

The point I am making is that a lot of Labour voters liked Thatcher back then for the policy of selling council houses and those 'poor' people in Council houses got 'richer' as a result.

A lot of poorer people therefore felt they benefited under Thatcher. You did not get the chance to buy a council house so you felt poorer but it was not just a case of the Tory Govt helping the rich.

Besides, Labour has not exactly built a whole load of Council Houses to replace the ones sold off in the last 13 years to reverse Tory policy.

no - your not reading my posts. i was a child when thatcher got in. i didnt want to buy a council house. my mother had one.

i could have really done with one when my husband got made redundant and we had to move lock stock and barrel half way up the country to get a roof over our heads.

it was wrong as a policy. i dont care who implemented it - i would have a problem with it.

where has the money ever been since to rebuild a load of houses that were sold in the boom/bust years of a conservative government?

bribing people to vote wasn't a policy. it was bribery.

no one has given me one single decent reason to vote 'tory.

Who said you have to vote tory ?... vote for whoever you like.

You're on the wrong thread anyway

I can remember the last recession too, and I was 13 when Mrs Thatcher was elected. I can also remember the Callaghan government.

Under the Tories I had a good state education; got O levels, A-levels and a degree with a grant and my fees paid. I got jobs under the Tories, we owned our own house and my husband's job was secure.

Under Labour I have seen the rise of a client state. I have seen means testing creep in; state surveillance with databases is increasing; my data has been sold off via the DVLA to raise money for this government; rural post offices have been decimated; defence has been starved of money and education has been subject to inequities of funding depending upon whether you live in the Labour heartlands or the Lib Dem South West. I have seen the increase of young people who think the government 'owes' them a living; I have seen 'stealth' taxes increase and the middle earners hammered time and time again. The effects of fiscal drag have more people paying 40% tax than ever before - I'd watch it Vicar, it may be you soon. I have seen the tentacles of the EU creeping more and more into British law and into British life.

There is no point in basing your voting intentions on what Mrs Thatcher did, as she was ousted from power in 1990. You have to - 20 years ago. You need to look at what the current incumbents have done and if you think they have earned your trust to continue to run the country. Labour have never had mine anyway, but I cannot find one single reason to vote for them.

I dislike the constant state interference in every aspect of my life.

I resent the fact that I am presumed to be a danger to children,unless I have a piece of paper saying I'm not.

I resent the fact that Labour hates and fears rural communities and has taken every opportunity to put the boot in to them.

I feel ashamed that my country invaded Iraq.

I have a long memory too and can remember the last Labour government,the strikes,no bread in the shops,no electricity,rubbish piled up in the streets.

It too depressing to think about them anymore.Roll on election day.

scaryteacher & 101damnations, If i weren't too fat and pregnant, I'd give you a standing ovation, but thank you all the same for two very wise and erudite posts.

The point that Vicar seems to have missed is that social housing isn't actually a good thing- certainly, there should be emergency help when it's needed, but that should be all it is. In a modern context it means sink estates which encourage apathy and state dependence. Mrs Thatcher sold off the council housing and allowed people to see that they could aspire to more.

Labour have trapped people in a stangnant client state and forced downward mobility on anyone who had the misfortune to be born to a stable, comfortably off family, on the grounds that "it's not fair". Socialism can never work for more than a few years- the momentum cannot be maintained and if we learn anthing from the Soviet Union, it should be that. There is an economic cost to all of the benefits that left you so comfortably off under Labour Vicar, and now we're paying it with £3trillion national debt.

Fundamentally, your family has to look after your children. Not the state. The state doesn't have the obligation to look after us, it has the obligtion to provide us with the means and drive to look after ourselves. A state should encourage upward social mobility, not pander to the jealousy of people who weren't born rich by peanalising the middle classes on their behalf.

I am no tory by a long shot but I find myself agreeing with everything you say Needle.

What's the anwer though? How do you turn wround people who now think the state owes them a living? What do you do about the people that are relying on the state to rise their children and support them without doing a days work? And getting rent paid for them?

How can the tories change this? And will they?

and so who is the alternative?

ive decided not to vote this time. i cant vote for any of them.

i dont like the tory ethos

i dont like what labour have done in the last few years

the lib dems wont say who they will support if there is a hung parliament

there isnt an alternative in reality.

tell me if im wrong. cant see the point in voting tbh.

So don't vote if you don't care who gets in next. I'm in Belgium with my dh, but I've registered to vote and got my proxy and dh's sorted out. There is no way that I wouldn't be voting in this election.

You want to join the police Vicar? Have a look at what the parties are proposing for the police then. This will affect your working conditions and whether you are a bobby on the beat, or a target driven revenue generating form filler who can't do anything about Grannies being burgled because you're ticking your target boxes.

If you don't vote, then you can't moan about whoever is elected. You are choosing to disenfranchise yourself. If you don't like the three main parties, then vote UKIP if you are anti-EU; or the Greens, or the Monster Raving Loony party; do tactical voting if you wish, but vote for someone.

well said, scary , 101 and needles

I cannot abide this labour party. They are a bunch of lying scumbags. They have no moral compass whatsoever. They are a group of individuals who largely benefitted from free HE, student grants etc and have systematically taken these away from the young people of today. There are less jobs available for the young and at the same time, they want people to work for longer before retiring. They preached the importance of individuals saving while hiking up tax and NI rates, selling off our assets for less than they were worth and putting nothing in our kitty for the future - as evidence by the action taken in this current recession. I could go on and on.

vicar - IMO the reason you should vote is because people fought long and hard to give us the right. Plus, again IMO, if you don't use your vote, you don't really have the right to moan about the outcome.

They're all the same to me and that.

ive never moaned about the outcome. DH has never voted in his life - he has never seen the point as nothing ever changes.

im coming round to his way of thinking.

so i should vote for a party i dont believe in just because i have the right to do it? dont think so. im not a sheep.i will vote if i believe in a parties policies. and not for any other reason. and no one has so much as knocked at my door or delivered a leaflet to tell me what that policy is, so think ill let them all get on with it.