New Prime Minister, New Government

Yv said:
Sarah for next PM then? Do you fancy a party leadership role too, I beleive there may be a job vacancy :naughty:
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:lol: :lol: :lol:
After the lot I have to deal with in work, I reckon running the country and keeping a few politicians in line has to be an easier option ;)

(although the vacancy going is the wrong colour for me . . . I've never looked good in red)
 
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I will tell you what it will bring, frigging chaos. the Tories will **** up big time, and we will see labour back in again by 2011 :D
 
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u8myufo said:
I will tell you what it will bring, frigging chaos. the Tories will **** up big time, and we will see labour back in again by 2011 :D
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They won't but they're going to be trying to sort out such a labour mess that the LD's will most likely renege on the agreements, the population will blame the tories for the actually taking the "tough decisions" which need to be taken and labour probably will get in again fairly quickly.
 
the thing about modern politics is that the 'old' parties no longer exist. where are the Kinnocks or the Tebbits? no real hard line right or left wingers anymore. Im hopeful that this will work well as there seems to be a lot of common ground, but folk need to remember that we are in the carp because gordon spent spent spent, and that now needs paying back.
 
u8myufo said:
I will tell you what it will bring, frigging chaos. the Tories will **** up big time, and we will see labour back in again by 2011 :D
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and by 2012 we will be like Greece totally bankrupt and having the ask the IMF for a loan, just like Labour did in 76 when they asked for a £3.8Bn loan (wonder what that is in today's money)
 
whiteflyer said:
and by 2012 we will be like Greece totally bankrupt and having the ask the IMF for a loan, just like Labour did in 76 when they asked for a £3.8Bn loan (wonder what that is in today's money)
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We are already totally bankrupt and printing money faster than the fastest money printer can print money on a fast printer :D ... We just haven't been told yet! .... Soon they won't even be able to afford the ink :shake:
 
whiteflyer said:
the media are going to have to start to do real journalism,
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Oh now come on! how can you live with yourself? putting the media and journalism in the same sentence??
 
Splog said:
We are already totally bankrupt and printing money faster than the fastest money printer can print money on a fast printer :D ... We just haven't been told yet! .... Soon they won't even be able to afford the ink :shake:
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There's actually a real shortage of hard cash in the UK.
 
The full text of the collation document is now available here, but this should make each and every single one of us very very happy.

The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.

This will include:

# A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.

# The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.

# Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.

# The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

# Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

# The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.

# The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.

# The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.

# Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.

# Further regulation of CCTV.

# Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.

# A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
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There never will be any great government that everyone will love and any prime minister can never please everyone. We all have our own opinions and ideas on how the country should be run and anyone in power can only go one of two ways to sort it, short of contradicting his own policies we just have to get on with it. Labour would always argue that the conservatives were unsure or wouldn't answer some of their future plans. I think this is a good thing, if you can't promise it, then you haven't broken it. I remember when labour promised this then promised that, yet when they didnt follow through they were branded liars. At least if cameron hasn't promised anything solid he cant be labelled a liar or policy breaker. The only things he has promised are the things he truly wants to make sure changes and is practically possible to change.

One thing i have noticed whenever any party take charge of government this always seems to happen.

1. new party takes control, blames the poor state of the country on the previous party. The new party makes lots of promises

2. Some promises are broken and the country shows no real signs of changing for the better

3. The new party continue to blame the mess of the country on the previous party in charge and say it will take time to fix.

4. Some policies change others that originally planned to get changed were found to be inpractical or just impossible for whatever reason.

5. The new party get cozy with the high life of being in government and start to slack and get lazy.

6. A new party gets voted in and promise all sorts of changes. They blame the state of the country on the previous party in charge and plan to fix it.........

7. and on it goes.
 
I wonder how happy everyone will be when the VAT rate goes up to 20% in a few weeks and all the promised strikes (BA etc) start? My feeling is that we're in for not so much a winter of discontent, but rather a summer.....
 
Well, I talked about VAT earlier in this thread and I seem to remember that Cameron was accused of hiding a planned VAT rise by Brown...

You might remember back to.... well, ooooh, YESTERDAY when they said:

The parties agree that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery is the most urgent issue facing Britain. We have therefore agreed that there will need to be:

a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament, with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased taxes;

And now this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10112936.stm

Hold onto your hats, the honeymoon is coming to an end...
 
desantnik said:
Well, I talked about VAT earlier in this thread and I seem to remember that Cameron was accused of hiding a planned VAT rise by Brown...

You might remember back to.... well, ooooh, YESTERDAY when they said:

The parties agree that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery is the most urgent issue facing Britain. We have therefore agreed that there will need to be:

a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament, with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased taxes;

And now this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10112936.stm

Hold onto your hats, the honeymoon is coming to an end...
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In his pre-election interview Paxman pressed Cameron on whether there was going to be a VAT increase should he become pm and Cameron flatly refused to confirm or deny, which in politikspeak is as good as admitting that yes, there would be one.
 
whiteflyer said:
The full text of the collation document is now available here, but this should make each and every single one of us very very happy.
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The text you quoted addresses very many of my problems with the last decade of Labout government. If we get all of it I will be very happy.
 
I wonder if people will still be blaming Brown in 25 years time like they do Thatcher now.

The posts above that relate to this government having to make "hard decisions" are bang on. I suspect we don't know half the poop we are in right now, and the cabinet are only just discovering it..

The only time I've really got angry over this whole election was when Alistair Campbell was on sky news 2 days ago sprouting how the country was so much better off than when Labour took power in '97. The man is either stupid or blind.

If I recall correctly no part ruled out a VAT raise during the various interviews and debates. Like it or not taxes will increase and they would of no matter who was in power.
Just think of how much more tax we would of been paying to pay if Labour had got back in to pay for ID cards and all the other repeals that are mentioned above.
 
Wooooah, forget the VAT for now...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/12/coalition-government-your-money

So the National Insurance hike that Brown wanted will go ahead... but because of Cam's big business friends, it will only apply to the employee part, not the employer part.

Capital gains tax up from 18% to 40% and the threshold lowered to £2,500... dump your shares while you can... oh and your buy to let properties. Should cause carnage....
 
No, its not what Brown wanted.

The rise was due to by 1%, half funded by each party. Camerons pledge was to drop the employers half so that they'd have a bit more cash to invest in the business / take on more staff etc.
The 0.5% increase for employees was always going to go ahead.
 
desantnik said:
Wooooah, forget the VAT for now...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/12/coalition-government-your-money

So the National Insurance hike that Brown wanted will go ahead... but because of Cam's big business friends, it will only apply to the employee part, not the employer part.

Capital gains tax up from 18% to 40% and the threshold lowered to £2,500... dump your shares while you can... oh and your buy to let properties. Should cause carnage....
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It's no real surprise that there will be increases in tax. We're in a complete financial mess and the funding has had to come from somewhere.

The NI hike is really not a big deal. For most people a 0.5% increase will equate to no more than a few £ per week.
And to see the impact on individuals' pockets, you really need to look at it in the context of the other tax changes. Depending on the roll-out of the increased personal allowance, people could still end up better off overall.

That Capital Gains rise is a bit hefty I agree. But the reality is that not many people will be adversely affected.
Shares / Buy to let properties are a long term investment. Tax on the income from them will be unaffected by this rise and with prices where they are right now, not many will be looking to sell. And by the time the markets recover and prices go up :shrug: who knows what the tax rates will be.

Besides, it's fairly likely that if people did sell right now they would be making a capital loss rather than a gain.

Anyway, I'm going to reserve judgement until the full emergency budget is published . . . but so far I've not seen anything that really alarms me.
 
i think tax rises were going to happen whoever we got in, and like it or not, the last 13 years of spending money we dont have has to be paid back. Its a good plan, borrow as much as possible then blame the incoming government when the tax has to go up
 
The important thing is to get some sort of recovery underway. Hiking up taxes on existing incomes is not going to produce enough extra revenue to make much of a dent in our massive deficit and public spending can only be cut so far - especially now that scrapping Trident (the biggest single waste of money) has been ruled out.

Ideally, an upturn in the economy will trigger a change in the fortunes of the banks. We have an enormous number of shares in some of the biggest players now, indeed that accounts for a huge chunk of the deficit. If those shares were to rise significantly and the market was stable enough the Government could start selling them in tranches to make some real headway in paying off our debts. Potentially they could even make a substantial profit on those shares, although that's getting rather too far ahead of where we are right now - a lot of work needs to be done first.
 
I was listening to a prog on Radio 4 the other night and they were describing the debt on the books was 30k per household. Additionally to that their was the debt NOT on the books, about 700 quid of bank bail outs and 400 quid of PFI debt.... additional to this was the 35k that was exposure on public sector pensions fund defecits...

So the bank bailout is probably the least worrying and not included factor in the calculations.

Don't expect the forthcoming promise of a full disclosure of the size of the problem to include anything but the first 30k of on the books problems though....
 
the debt is massive - we rely on importing too much stuff from abroad, there is no real manufacturing to sell to other countries so much any more.
 
matty said:
the debt is massive - we rely on importing too much stuff from abroad, there is no real manufacturing to sell to other countries so much any more.
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So very sadly true .. The focus seemed to change to the financial services as the 'be all' for the future of the country ... :shake:

About three years ago the company I work for invested apx £25 million in a small production plant in Czech R. and okay, the labour is cheaper but it's catching up with us fast!, the transport costs are increasing, lead times getting longer and quality has been way off the mark! I wouldn't say it has seriously harmed the business .. yet? My concern is when they decide to reduce costs further, they are very unlikely to make them in Czech! ... The cuts will be made in Europe! ... Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Holland etc. and of course the UK :shake:
 
Its quite easy to fall foul of some of the financial experts you see on the telly and in the news... these guys are investment bankers, they aren't talking about real numbers, they are just talking about stuff that effects the roulette wheels they play at.

Don't get the idea that "the UK is not the powerhouse it used to be" - take a look at the figures for GDP - the figure has actually doubled since 1997... thats not a political statement on my part, its just the hard numbers....
 
One thing confuses me. (Only one?) If virtually every country in the world is in debt, who's lending all the money? :thinking:
 
One thing to keep in mind regarding our national debt, the real issue is not the size of it but rather our ability to service it. Once the stage is reached that we have to borrow yet more money purely to cover the interest payments, then that's a real problem.

However, it is neither necessary or desireable to completely pay off all the debt. Imagine the reaction of those with national savings when they are told their money is no longer needed so could they please take it home and put it under the bed!
 
desantnik said:
Its quite easy to fall foul of some of the financial experts you see on the telly and in the news... these guys are investment bankers, they aren't talking about real numbers, they are just talking about stuff that effects the roulette wheels they play at.

Don't get the idea that "the UK is not the powerhouse it used to be" - take a look at the figures for GDP - the figure has actually doubled since 1997... thats not a political statement on my part, its just the hard numbers....
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thats an interesting statistic, I dont suppose there is any detail on what we are making and where its going?
 
GDP is not exports, GDP is the output of the country - ie its net monetary worth.

But here is the figure in a nice interactive graph for you to play with:

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl=en&q=uk+gdp

For imports and exports, this is quite informative:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/24/uk-trade-exports-imports

You might be surprised at both the types of things exported (in the nice graphic) and also who the top country is that we import from... and further more, looking down the list how disasterous it would be for the nutters at UKIP to suggest we leave the EU!!
 
in an ideal world where actors in eastenders could act and the powers that be would decide to reset the bank and credit card balances to zero. thus giving the world a fresh start financially, and 3rd world countries wouldn't know any different.

end of world debt.

I just hope that all this lending actually comes out smelling of roses as all i can see is other countries getting annoyed that they are not getting repaid and want to kick off about it. after all money is the root of all evil and world wars have been set off over less trivial matters.
 
Government borrowing is something that goes on all the time in every country. It always has and always will do as its a foundation for the economic machinery that makes up a country as a financial system. Governments cannot run a country without borrowing.

People getting stroppy about unpaid debt? Well, the UK is not likely to not pay its debts, our credit rating is still AAA (as good as it gets and equal amongst the major powers - not surprising considering that the UK is the fith largest economy in the world!)

Again, I think a lot of folks don't really understand quite what the politicos are actually talking about with debt and finance and whatever - its not like you personally owing money to a credit card company or a loan shark!

A few years ago, I did come up with the idea of starting a company to basically repossess third world countries and asset strip them in the event of them failing to meet their international loan repayments. I just needed to get my hands on a lot of (at the time) very cheap ex-Soviet hardware and cheap ex-Soviet soldiers to go with it. I think I missed the boat on that one, could have been big :D
 
archamedes said:
in an ideal world where actors in eastenders could act and the powers that be would decide to reset the bank and credit card balances to zero. thus giving the world a fresh start financially, and 3rd world countries wouldn't know any different.

end of world debt.
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Lets look at scenarios for resetting bank balances to zero. Say I'm 28, living rented with no debt and £20k saved for a house deposit. I'm not going to be happy.

Lets say I'm 40 and have no debt aside from £120k mortgage. Very, very happy.

Lets say I'm 70 and have 150k invested in monthly interest accounts to provide a retirement pension. Very very unhappy.

An ideal world? Absolutely not.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Lets look at scenarios for resetting bank balances to zero. Say I'm 28, living rented with no debt and £20k saved for a house deposit. I'm not going to be happy.

Lets say I'm 40 and have no debt aside from £120k mortgage. Very, very happy.

Lets say I'm 70 and have 150k invested in monthly interest accounts to provide a retirement pension. Very very unhappy.

An ideal world? Absolutely not.
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i meant the debts, i guess i should have worded that a bit better. everyone over with savings are fine. anyone under and in debt are reset.
 
Hmmm every debtor is a creditor - the two sides of the book.

That bank account you have is a pile of cash the bank owe you... shall we write that off too? :D
 
desantnik said:
Hmmm every debtor is a creditor - the two sides of the book.

That bank account you have is a pile of cash the bank owe you... shall we write that off too? :D
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Mine isn't! :razz:
 
desantnik said:
A few years ago, I did come up with the idea of starting a company to basically repossess third world countries and asset strip them
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The Chinese have already thought of that and are in the process of doing it to the UK and the US - starting with the motor industry....
 
Flash In The Pan said:
The Chinese have already thought of that and are in the process of doing it to the UK and the US - starting with the motor industry....
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No, my version had more tank armies and air assault elements :D
 
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