Scotland is one of the last places on earth where they still believe in socialism. They believe in tax and spend. It's what gets them excited. They are passionate about the redistribution of wealth and good luck to them.
But they are never going to get the kind of autoerotic taxation they so crave while they are part of the UK. They want powers well beyond what the Smith Commission advises.
The UK needs to let Scotland go. They need a chance to succeed or fail on their own terms.
Scotland is one of the last places on earth where they still believe in socialism. They believe in tax and spend. It's what gets them excited. They are passionate about the redistribution of wealth and good luck to them.
But they are never going to get the kind of autoerotic taxation they so crave while they are part of the UK. They want powers well beyond what the Smith Commission advises.
The UK needs to let Scotland go. They need a chance to succeed or fail on their own terms.
Is it one of last places where people still believe in socialism? I don't think you understand how our great voting system works? Believe or not plenty of people vote Tory in Scotland and in Northern England. And plenty of people in Southern England vote Labour.
The referendum "represents a risk to growth prospects" for the country's economy, S&P said in a statement.
However, S&P warned that it wasn't just the referendum that was causing concern.
"We believe a possible UK departure from the EU also raises questions about the financing of the UK's large twin deficits and its high private short-term external debt," it added.
Furthermore, S&P cautioned that a lack of political consensus could affect UK economic policy in the future. "It is also our view that the calling of a referendum on EU membership indicates that economic policymaking could be at risk of being more exposed to party politics than we had previously anticipated," it continued.
The Conservatives have set two traps for themselves, the first of which is the division and internal fight over Europe. The second is Cameron's unwise advance announcement that he would not seek a third term. In the years ahead, that will lead to endless divisive speculation and infighting about who will succeed him.
We might have these crude gloating threads now but I suspect that they will disappear after a couple of years when reality starts to bite.
Who runs the EU? - German. Everyone else is Merkel's bitch.
When the EU negotiates trade deals with China & India & the US who do you think calls the shots? Right, Germany.
This is why the German economy is powering ahead with an unchecked trade deficit while the rest of the EU struggles to make ends meet.
Leaving the EU will give the UK the opportunity to negotiate our own trade deals with huge economies such as China and India & the US.
Of course there are risks. We can stay part of an unreformed EU and slowly drown while Germany prospers. But there fantastic opportunities for the Uk to really prosper outside of the EU's trade shackles.
I'm pretty sure if you read that S&P report it will say just as much it's just the pro EU media and establishment don't want to spread the good news.
Indeed, no Conservative has a problem with providing help for those who are genuinely vulnerable through no fault of their own. The trouble is that the fat-idle, work-shy, lead swingers are clogging up the system and need to be rooted-out. They're the ones who are impacting the deserving vulnerable in Britain.
That's just laughable, been watching too much poverty porn TV, the welfare bill, even including your lead swingers, is small compared to the cost of pensions etc.
The Tories have been successful in making the work welfare a dirty word.
The Conservatives have set two traps for themselves, the first of which is the division and internal fight over Europe. The second is Cameron's unwise advance announcement that he would not seek a third term. In the years ahead, that will lead to endless divisive speculation and infighting about who will succeed him.
We might have these crude gloating threads now but I suspect that they will disappear after a couple of years when reality starts to bite.
Cameron made a major error in judgment ( something of a trait with him) when announcing his departure, the win has made sure that his demise will come after the referendum, there are enough players wanting to succeed him who won't stand for not having a least a year and half as PM in the run up to the next election with the leadership campaign lasting at least 6 months he's not long for this world..
It never existed in the first place, it's nothing but anti-benefits rhetoric.
Yet another fantasy post.
There are able bodied people who have hardly worked in their lives yet they are housed at tax payer's expence and given money yet more tax payer's money each week to live off.
That is a something for nothing culture and it has to stop.
There are able bodied people who have hardly worked in their lives yet they are housed at tax payer's expence and given money yet more tax payer's money each week to live off.
That is a something for nothing culture and it has to stop.
Out-of-work benefits claims have fallen to their lowest level in 35 years.
There are able bodied people who have hardly worked in their lives yet they are housed at tax payer's expence and given money yet more tax payer's money each week to live off.
That is a something for nothing culture and it has to stop.
That's all very nice and simplistic - but doesn't it give you pause to ask whether the Government is going about it in the right way, if the means employed in the quest for this Holy Grail are - apparently - driving some people who are not able to work to penury and suicide? Or is that acceptable collateral damage, in your book?
I don't have a particular axe to grind against this Government for myself, but I'm sure you'd appreciate that there is a danger in becoming so obsessed with some ideal goal - in this case, getting people out of welfare dependency and the 'benefits culture' - that you end up setting up blanket rules that end up harming a whole bunch of people to whom we would not normally seek to deny welfare payments. The law of unintended consequences is writ large when you have one centrally-administered, State-run welfare system trying to make one set of rules that apply to everybody.
Yes I agree IDS's reforms have worked wonders getting people to take up jobs but credit must also go to George Osborne. On my travels I am constantly seeing vacancy notices and that is a clear indication that Osborne's policies have been right all along and the UK's economy is surging.
That's all very nice and simplistic - but doesn't it give you pause to ask whether the Government is going about it in the right way, if the means employed in the quest for this Holy Grail are - apparently - driving some people who are not able to work to penury and suicide? Or is that acceptable collateral damage, in your book?
People who have been accessed as not able to work are not required to work.
I think you are talking about people who were once classed as not able to work but have now been accessed as able to do some work if not heavy labour.
I agree entirely this is a very difficult area. These people have been allowed to fester on benefits and some may well be very upset or even frightened at the prospect of working.
These people need to seek help. No sensible government can say, "Oh go on then we'll pay for you anyway."
People who have been accessed as not able to work are not required to work.
I think you are talking about people who were once classed as not able to work but have now been accessed as able to do some work if not heavy labour.
I assume you mean 'assessed', but unless you've been living under a rock I'm sure you are aware that there have been some pretty shocking assessment decisions made - and people who've had their benefits stopped while they appeal against those assessments. (As I recall, the spectre of ATOS is Labour's fault; but AFAIK the Coalition did little about it and I'm not confident that the current Government will either.)
Then you have the stories about the "spare-room subsidy" penalising some disabled people who need a spare bedroom because they have special requirements.
I agree entirely this is a very difficult area. These people have been allowed to fester on benefits and some may well be very upset or even frightened at the prospect of working.
It's not just about people "festering on benefits", though, is it? It's about people who should never have been assessed as being fit to work, who get penalised while they appeal, and who get money clawed back from them by the State because they need a spare room to keep the heavy medical equipment needed to maintain any quality of life.
It's also about making work pay - which, all credit due, the Coalition Government actually did something about by raising the tax thresholds (albeit by way of imposing substantial marginal tax rates on people who ended up caught in the 40% tax net despite taking home no more in real terms - but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess). There's more that could be done here; it's not enough to apply a stick if the carrot is seemingly out of reach. Imposing the curse of Tantalus on the non-working is not going to have the results you want.
These people need to seek help. No sensible government can say, "Oh go on then we'll pay for you anyway."
A sensible Government can make sensible decisions to recognise when a system is flawed and reform it so that it doesn't unduly harm people who cannot realistically work.
No system is perfect but the fact remains that a lot of people previously classed as unable to work can undertake some form of work.
They may not agree with that decision but all they have to do is produce a CV, search for jobs, apply for jobs and attend interviews.
They can even apply for training courses.
None of those tasks should cause people to take their own lives.
Except these courses run by the DWP are rubbish and don't help people get a job at all. They are obsessed about sanctions not helping people get a job. It's all about getting people off benefits, by hook or crook.
In my life away from this forum I am a video-gamer. Why should I care I hear you ask. Well I am a Sony man. I can only afford to buy one console and a hand full of games every generation but I still want to have my time spent gaming to be rewarding. In this instance this is helped by the fact that Sony has one main rival in Mircosoft and they also have Nintendo which gives people an option away from the big two. This mirrored the political scene we had in the last decade and you can also add the analogy of mobile gaming to take into consideration the new parties coming onto the political scene. It is quite clear that the competition has forced Sony to keep its game up - if we ignore the less than robust PSN, that they are trying to improve. Any organisation without competition get lazy and complacent.
This spins it back to politics. The OP and certain other Conservative posters don't seem to realise that their party thrives better - and as a result so does the country - where it has a strong opposition in the Labour Party and other parties nipping at its heels. The uncertainty of this year's election forced it to run - I'll admit it - an excellent campaign. It is not in its own interest to have a weak Labour Party.
Can I also just point out that Labour didn't lose the election and some of its votes because of turning to the left but because potential Labour voters still saw them as an incompetent centre-right party. The increase in votes for the left leaning SNP and Green Party still proves there is an appetite for left policies in this country. It is just people moved away from Labour to them because Labour we not seen as being left and that was fatal to them. The Labour Party did not offer centre-left voters any reason to vote for them other than tribal, unthinking, loyalty.
Except these courses run by the DWP are rubbish and don't help people get a job at all. They are obsessed about sanctions not helping people get a job. It's all about getting people off benefits, by hook or crook.
I can well believe the courses are rubbish. I knew someone who went on a 2 week course to learn how to use Microsoft Word. He tells me they mostly dicked around. The guy running the course wasn't that interested in people getting the skills they needed to gain employment as long as he got paid.
But the fact remains being sent on a course is no reason to take your own life.
...but you do seem to be shying away from acknowledging that a number of people previously classed as unable to work have been unreasonably assessed as fit to work, and been penalized for it.
...but you do seem to be shying away from acknowledging that a number of people previously classed as unable to work have been unreasonably assessed as fit to work, and been penalized for it.
Can you put a reliable figure on the number of people previously classed as unable to work who have been wrongly assessed as able to work?
These would be people who have won an appeal and have been once again classified as completely unable to work.
Barely a month after winning a stunning majority in the General Election and Cameron & Osborne are already stuck in to implementing the Tory manifesto and more.
Cameron has completed his first tour of Europe carefully explaining just what the EU needs to do to ensure the UK doesn't vote to leave.
The Queen's speech passed with hardly a murmur from the opposition.
The EU Referendum bill has been put to the House
Ditto the Scotland bill.
The rest of Royal Mail being sold
Plans to sell RBS announced
Osborne's Emergency Budget for "working people" set for early July.
Meanwhile the oppositions are in complete disarray; Labour is torn between heading further to the Left and more oblivian and aping the Tories. A right royal mess awaits the winner of that booby contest.
The SNP MPs at Westminster are a total irrelevance. They promised no more business as usual but they are reduced to arguing with an 83 year old man about his seat!
Meanwhile in Scotland Cameron & Osborne have stitched up Sturgeon who is left to contemplate exactly what she is going to do with her new Tax & Benefit powers from April next year.
Despite all the noises from the Left and from the Right things couldn't get much better for Cameron & Osborne - the weather is fine and the wind is in the Government's sails
You can add a great reforming budget to that list!
Despite all the warnings of a wafer thin majority and internal trouble within the Tory ranks nothing is stopping Cameron and Osborne delivering the changes they want to see.
nothing is stopping Cameron and Osborne delivering the changes they want to see.
Fingers crossed that by 2020, everyone in the United Kingdom will have access to better public services and have higher living standards. And there will still be the current 4 constituent UK nations.
Despite all the fantasies about the power of the SNP's mandate and the slimness of the goverent's majority Cameron's team are delivering radical policies which will reshape the UK.
The SNP fell into an obvious EVEL trap over fox hunting.
New union laws to stop strike action crippling schools and London transport and the doctors and consultants told to improve death rates at the weekend. No sensible person could disagree with either.
Less than 4 months in and things are looking great for Conservative voters even before Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour's new leader.
Despite all the fantasies about the power of the SNP's mandate and the slimness of the goverent's majority Cameron's team are delivering radical policies which will reshape the UK.
The SNP fell into an obvious EVEL trap over fox hunting.
New union laws to stop strike action crippling schools and London transport and the doctors and consultants told to improve death rates at the weekend. No sensible person could disagree with either.
Less than 4 months in and things are looking great for Conservative voters even before Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour's new leader.
I have to laugh at your blinkered view of the Tories. Ask in 5 years time if people will be happy with them, once cuts start to hit 'hard working people'.
Comments
Depends what you mean by 'over'.
But I think that you want Scotland to go.
Yes I do.
Scotland is one of the last places on earth where they still believe in socialism. They believe in tax and spend. It's what gets them excited. They are passionate about the redistribution of wealth and good luck to them.
But they are never going to get the kind of autoerotic taxation they so crave while they are part of the UK. They want powers well beyond what the Smith Commission advises.
The UK needs to let Scotland go. They need a chance to succeed or fail on their own terms.
That's all rather damning:
The Conservatives have set two traps for themselves, the first of which is the division and internal fight over Europe. The second is Cameron's unwise advance announcement that he would not seek a third term. In the years ahead, that will lead to endless divisive speculation and infighting about who will succeed him.
We might have these crude gloating threads now but I suspect that they will disappear after a couple of years when reality starts to bite.
When the EU negotiates trade deals with China & India & the US who do you think calls the shots? Right, Germany.
This is why the German economy is powering ahead with an unchecked trade deficit while the rest of the EU struggles to make ends meet.
Leaving the EU will give the UK the opportunity to negotiate our own trade deals with huge economies such as China and India & the US.
Of course there are risks. We can stay part of an unreformed EU and slowly drown while Germany prospers. But there fantastic opportunities for the Uk to really prosper outside of the EU's trade shackles.
I'm pretty sure if you read that S&P report it will say just as much it's just the pro EU media and establishment don't want to spread the good news.
That's just laughable, been watching too much poverty porn TV, the welfare bill, even including your lead swingers, is small compared to the cost of pensions etc.
The Tories have been successful in making the work welfare a dirty word.
Cameron made a major error in judgment ( something of a trait with him) when announcing his departure, the win has made sure that his demise will come after the referendum, there are enough players wanting to succeed him who won't stand for not having a least a year and half as PM in the run up to the next election with the leadership campaign lasting at least 6 months he's not long for this world..
It never existed in the first place, it's nothing but anti-benefits rhetoric.
Yet another fantasy post.
There are able bodied people who have hardly worked in their lives yet they are housed at tax payer's expence and given money yet more tax payer's money each week to live off.
That is a something for nothing culture and it has to stop.
Out-of-work benefits claims have fallen to their lowest level in 35 years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3113085/Vindication-IDS-Claims-work-benefit-hit-35-year-low-2-1-controversial-welfare-reforms.html
That's all very nice and simplistic - but doesn't it give you pause to ask whether the Government is going about it in the right way, if the means employed in the quest for this Holy Grail are - apparently - driving some people who are not able to work to penury and suicide? Or is that acceptable collateral damage, in your book?
I don't have a particular axe to grind against this Government for myself, but I'm sure you'd appreciate that there is a danger in becoming so obsessed with some ideal goal - in this case, getting people out of welfare dependency and the 'benefits culture' - that you end up setting up blanket rules that end up harming a whole bunch of people to whom we would not normally seek to deny welfare payments. The law of unintended consequences is writ large when you have one centrally-administered, State-run welfare system trying to make one set of rules that apply to everybody.
Yes I agree IDS's reforms have worked wonders getting people to take up jobs but credit must also go to George Osborne. On my travels I am constantly seeing vacancy notices and that is a clear indication that Osborne's policies have been right all along and the UK's economy is surging.
People who have been accessed as not able to work are not required to work.
I think you are talking about people who were once classed as not able to work but have now been accessed as able to do some work if not heavy labour.
I agree entirely this is a very difficult area. These people have been allowed to fester on benefits and some may well be very upset or even frightened at the prospect of working.
These people need to seek help. No sensible government can say, "Oh go on then we'll pay for you anyway."
I assume you mean 'assessed', but unless you've been living under a rock I'm sure you are aware that there have been some pretty shocking assessment decisions made - and people who've had their benefits stopped while they appeal against those assessments. (As I recall, the spectre of ATOS is Labour's fault; but AFAIK the Coalition did little about it and I'm not confident that the current Government will either.)
Then you have the stories about the "spare-room subsidy" penalising some disabled people who need a spare bedroom because they have special requirements.
It's not just about people "festering on benefits", though, is it? It's about people who should never have been assessed as being fit to work, who get penalised while they appeal, and who get money clawed back from them by the State because they need a spare room to keep the heavy medical equipment needed to maintain any quality of life.
It's also about making work pay - which, all credit due, the Coalition Government actually did something about by raising the tax thresholds (albeit by way of imposing substantial marginal tax rates on people who ended up caught in the 40% tax net despite taking home no more in real terms - but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess). There's more that could be done here; it's not enough to apply a stick if the carrot is seemingly out of reach. Imposing the curse of Tantalus on the non-working is not going to have the results you want.
A sensible Government can make sensible decisions to recognise when a system is flawed and reform it so that it doesn't unduly harm people who cannot realistically work.
They may not agree with that decision but all they have to do is produce a CV, search for jobs, apply for jobs and attend interviews.
They can even apply for training courses.
None of those tasks should cause people to take their own lives.
This spins it back to politics. The OP and certain other Conservative posters don't seem to realise that their party thrives better - and as a result so does the country - where it has a strong opposition in the Labour Party and other parties nipping at its heels. The uncertainty of this year's election forced it to run - I'll admit it - an excellent campaign. It is not in its own interest to have a weak Labour Party.
Can I also just point out that Labour didn't lose the election and some of its votes because of turning to the left but because potential Labour voters still saw them as an incompetent centre-right party. The increase in votes for the left leaning SNP and Green Party still proves there is an appetite for left policies in this country. It is just people moved away from Labour to them because Labour we not seen as being left and that was fatal to them. The Labour Party did not offer centre-left voters any reason to vote for them other than tribal, unthinking, loyalty.
I can well believe the courses are rubbish. I knew someone who went on a 2 week course to learn how to use Microsoft Word. He tells me they mostly dicked around. The guy running the course wasn't that interested in people getting the skills they needed to gain employment as long as he got paid.
But the fact remains being sent on a course is no reason to take your own life.
...but you do seem to be shying away from acknowledging that a number of people previously classed as unable to work have been unreasonably assessed as fit to work, and been penalized for it.
Can you put a reliable figure on the number of people previously classed as unable to work who have been wrongly assessed as able to work?
These would be people who have won an appeal and have been once again classified as completely unable to work.
No. I know that it is non-zero, obviously, because of stories reported in the media. Do you happen to know? How would we tell?
Do you know what happens to their benefits while an appeal is in progress, and how long appeals can take?
You can add a great reforming budget to that list!
Despite all the warnings of a wafer thin majority and internal trouble within the Tory ranks nothing is stopping Cameron and Osborne delivering the changes they want to see.
Fingers crossed that by 2020, everyone in the United Kingdom will have access to better public services and have higher living standards. And there will still be the current 4 constituent UK nations.
The SNP fell into an obvious EVEL trap over fox hunting.
New union laws to stop strike action crippling schools and London transport and the doctors and consultants told to improve death rates at the weekend. No sensible person could disagree with either.
Less than 4 months in and things are looking great for Conservative voters even before Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour's new leader.