|
Why would anyone vote lib dem? Despite literally signing pledges not to do things their votes have enabled the Tories to pass every bit of destructive legislation they wanted.
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 07:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 12:56 |
|
|
kingturnip posted:He really is one of the biggest hypocrites in UK politics, which is quite a feat. Yes, but you see, not those properties and not those foreigners
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 07:07
|
|
|
Turns out that nominating a mostly anonymous nobody for a major post on the European Commission may not have been Cameron's smartest move after all, even after Juncker made nice and let him try for the position he wanted: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b02beb82-4986-11e4-80fb-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Ema8wh2Y quote:Britain’s Lord Hill has been hauled back for an unprecedented second confirmation hearing to become Europe’s financial regulation chief after the European parliament faulted his grasp of the subject matter. Maybe, just maybe, Cameron shouldn't have asked a guy with no experience of financial regulation to run for the post of Europe's senior financial regulator.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 08:51
|
|
|
Onion Vanguard posted:Is it possible for me to ask a question regarding benefits in here? If not, tell me to sod off but I'm gunna go for it anyway. Can't speak for anywhere else but in my part of the country PIP cases are usually decided about 6 weeks after the medical assessment but yes it will be backdated to when you first made your claim. The big thing though is if you are rejected by your medical tribunal 90% of people do get rejected, you have a month to put in an appeal from receiving the rejection.  Do not try to file the appeal yourself take it to your local Citizens Advice Bureau they have specialist benefit workers and the ones where I work have about an 80-85% success rate in getting appeals through.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 08:52
|
|
|
Disappointing that none of the papers are calling Cameron out for shouting about his dead son to avoid addressing facts on the NHS.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:02
|
|
|
Ferrosol posted:Can't speak for anywhere else but in my part of the country PIP cases are usually decided about 6 weeks after the medical assessment but yes it will be backdated to when you first made your claim. The big thing though is if you are rejected by your medical tribunal 90% of people do get rejected, you have a month to put in an appeal from receiving the rejection. But I have an actual diagnosed brainstem condition for which I am on a chemotherapy drug, will they still reject my claim? If so, I swear to Christ I will flip the gently caress out. 6 weeks isn't too bad though, I have been waiting since January so...
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:32
|
|
|
gorki posted:Disappointing that none of the papers are calling Cameron out for shouting about his dead son to avoid addressing facts on the NHS. Sadly the right wing have a near monopoly on legitimately being offended. If anyone else gets offended it is cry baby PC bullshit but if you call out a xenophobe for having a foreign wife or a slasher of disability benefits for using those benefits before their kid died (in spite of being rich enough to not need them) then you have done a truly malicious and evil thing and hurt them to their core. It just isn't on and you lefties should actually live up to all your talk of tolerance and respect.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:38
|
|
|
Onion Vanguard posted:But I have an actual diagnosed brainstem condition for which I am on a chemotherapy drug, will they still reject my claim? If so, I swear to Christ I will flip the gently caress out. It's ATOS soon to be replaced Serco or G4S or whoever ends up being next on the sweet government gravy train. Who knows the logic behind why they do anything? As an outsider looking in the criteria for who gets passed through seem to depend on the whim of your assessor, the angle of the sun and the number of chickens you've sacrificed to the All-Father in the last lunar month.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 09:42
|
|
|
LemonDrizzle posted:Turns out that nominating a mostly anonymous nobody for a major post on the European Commission may not have been Cameron's smartest move after all, even after Juncker made nice and let him try for the position he wanted: Why not, in this country a degree in history gets you any of the top jobs if you have the right mates.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 10:04
|
|
|
Spangly A posted:Same, it's great. I should have voted Money Reform, whoever they actually are.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 10:37
|
|
|
LemonDrizzle posted:This is untrue because income tax is only one part of an individual's tax burden, and quite a small part for people on low incomes. This change does nothing to VAT, NICs, fuel/alcohol duty and so on. Second (and more importantly), that bottom 20% is the group that is most reliant on government services so they suffer the most from the cuts to services that are needed to enable these changes. The tax cuts are estimated to cost at least £7b, so It depends what the cuts to services are, but I broadly agree with you. However, it does follow the Tory party line of helping the people that help themselves. It also encourages people away from the rhetoric of 'I'd be better off on benefits' as it takes everyone earning minimum wage out of income tax (iirc minimum wage on a 40 hour week is approx 12.5k a year).
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 10:49
|
|
|
Surely Westminster would be the best dumping ground.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 10:54
|
|
|
tentish klown posted:It depends what the cuts to services are, but I broadly agree with you. However, it does follow the Tory party line of helping the people that help themselves. Why is it important that we take people on minimum wage out of tax, other than it makes a good soundbite? We'd be much better served increasing the minimum wage, which would a) have more of an impact on the working class and b) not affect services
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 10:57
|
|
|
Fans posted:Probably stick with Coal and Gas on the (very) slow march to 100% renewable. Nearly every study shows throwing money into end-use efficiency would do more to combat CO2 than going Nuclear and it's really doubtful we could ever afford to go full Nuclear even if we did want to make the switch from Coal and Gas. Can I see some of those? This sounds like the sort of conclusion with a lot of assumptions attached to it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:02
|
|
|
Anyone who actually thinks there are people out there who think 'its better to be on benefits' have probably never been on benefits.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:03
|
|
|
Touchdown Boy posted:Anyone who actually thinks there are people out there who think 'its better to be on benefits' have probably never been on benefits. It's like any other straw-boogeyman - they almost definitely exist somewhere, but in such tiny quantities that they're not worth discussing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:06
|
|
|
mfcrocker posted:Why is it important that we take people on minimum wage out of tax, other than it makes a good soundbite? We'd be much better served increasing the minimum wage, which would a) have more of an impact on the working class and b) not affect services Also, contribute more to tax, across the spectrum of taxes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:11
|
|
|
Touchdown Boy posted:Anyone who actually thinks there are people out there who think 'its better to be on benefits' have probably never been on benefits. No no no, you see as soon as you claim benefits you are issued 5 plasma TVs at the expense of the taxpayer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:15
|
|
|
XMNN posted:I saw/read some of Boris Johnson's Conservative party conference speech (Christ, what an awful, awful person he is) and there was one particularly I think he's either referring to unfair electoral boundaries, which are partially responsible for the Conservatives needing a much larger share of the vote to form a Government at the General Election compared to Labour, (an 11 point victory for Conservatives, compared to a 3 point victory for Labour) or - given his reference to recent events - he's probably referring to the West Lothian question and the boosting of Labour's English voting power with Scottish MPs. What I was surprised to see was that Lords Reform is apparently back on the table at the conference, even though that was the issue that sunk the boundary review. If it was Conservative policy to float Lords Reform all along, then they really screwed up the negotiations with the Lib Dems last time around! Prince John fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:17
|
|
-worthy moment when he says
|
mfcrocker posted:Why is it important that we take people on minimum wage out of tax, other than it makes a good soundbite? We'd be much better served increasing the minimum wage, which would a) have more of an impact on the working class and b) not affect services Think about it from the perspective of a well off middle class tory. They hate and resent taxes, so lowering the tax burden of the lower classes allows them to feel better about themselves even though it's less effective than giving out free money (which is how they would perceive a minimum wage raise) Giving something that you value highly to someone you don't like who won't get much use out of it in order to feel better about yourself while not actually helping them too much is a fairly common thing with utter  s, especially at Christmas. e/ and if they tell you how worthless your gift is, you get to self-righteously whinge about ungrateful poors. Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:18
|
|
|
Touchdown Boy posted:Anyone who actually thinks there are people out there who think 'its better to be on benefits' have probably never been on benefits. That's the kind of thing that can be solved by universal basic income, a negative income tax, or at the very least sorting out lovely contracts and helping out people who are not able to work full time. "People on benefits don't want to work because it's too cushy" is a convenient lie for a certain breed of politician and public, and it needs to be taken out back and shot.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:22
|
|
|
Renaissance Robot posted:Can I see some of those? This sounds like the sort of conclusion with a lot of assumptions attached to it. It's rough trying to find something suitably unbiased since a lot of the studies are by Renewable Energy advocates but this should be a start! http://www.iea.org/roadmaps/ has a ton of stuff on the state of Energy Technology and though they're not perfect on the bias front they don't have any beef with Nuclear.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:22
|
|
|
Touchdown Boy posted:Anyone who actually thinks there are people out there who think 'its better to be on benefits' have probably never been on benefits. It isn't people thinking it so much as real wage decline being such that benefits start to leave people better off than working. Raising real wages is unacceptable to the elite so other things have to be cut to make real wage decline seem less bad. Similarly with public sector pay starting to look better than private sector wages. The solution was to cut public sector pay rather than raise private sector pay. In both cases the mild beneficiary is demonized so that the public fights itself rather than addresses who is taking all the money. I would guess the next step will be to portray welfare payments or public services as a zero sum game. The roads are in disrepair because of those greedy disabled people. There would be more bobbies on the beat if poors stopped having kids etc etc.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:25
|
|
|
"We'd have so much money if not for all those poor people hoarding all the wealth" is a lie with a flaw so obvious I've no idea how it isn't called out more often.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 11:56
|
|
|
The argument is more that money is being diverted to them that could otherwise go on Bettering Society, which is also silly but not so self-evidently so
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:10
|
|
|
The core which that argument rests on is that the bottom of society are not actually part of society. Which is offensively ridiculous, but that does not stop the press and people in power from trying to push it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:14
|
|
|
it's basically Poor people are why we can't have nice things
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:17
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:There are part time and zero hour type situations where you might be better on JSA than working (financially at least). At least the last time I was part time there was an hours trap like that. Especially the case once you factor in transport costs. If it costs you a tenner a day on the train to get to and from work then that's a fifth of pretax earnings from an 8 hour day at minimum wage gone already. big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:27
|
|
|
Renaissance Robot posted:Giving something that you value highly to someone you don't like who won't get much use out of it in order to feel better about yourself while not actually helping them too much is a fairly common thing with utter Edit: Great, I just remembered the Little Match Girl story now. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:35
|
|
|
Just dropping in to say that nuclear power is great and has only political drawbacks
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:47
|
|
|
tentish klown posted:It depends what the cuts to services are, but I broadly agree with you. However, it does follow the Tory party line of helping the people that help themselves. What "rhetoric" are you talking about - who's going around extolling the glory of life on benefits? There are situations where it's better to be on benefits than to take on (additional) work, but they have nothing to do with income tax and everything to do with the stupid binary way in which certain benefits and tax credits are withdrawn as your income and hours of work increase. The OP links an excellent post by Ninpo describing one of these hosed up edge cases: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3541140&pagenumber=64&perpage=40#post414375333 Even if it were true that lots of people are currently un- or under-employed by choice and would be motivated to take up full time employment by income tax reductions, introducing a cut that primarily benefits people earning £50-100k is a retarded arse-backwards way of creating such motivation unless you believe that the true unmotivated slackers are the comfortable upper-middle classes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 12:54
|
|
|
big scary monsters posted:Especially the case once you factor in transport costs. If it costs you a tenner a day on the train to get to and from work then that's a fifth of pretax earnings from an 8 hour day at minimum wage gone already. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:03
|
|
|
Looks like the ScroungerCard trial is live in North Tyneside. Apparently you can use it online and set up DDs and what not. This is an enormous waste of money, administering standing orders, DDs and payments, as apparently it is able to be used in stores for payment. So it must have a visa(or whatever) capability for online and in store payments, no way to get the cash though. Also, your hosed if you need to get the bus and they only accept cash. Not to worry, we can still make the payments to Cash Converters to cover our plasma TV needs!
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:08
|
|
|
Is it a stored-value card or does it phone home to some notional "bank account" that the DWP runs? The latter sounds like a lot of work. The former sounds potentially hackable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:46
|
|
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29461008 Some good news. The Scottish Government is going to block councils from chasing poll tax debt. It looked like people were going to punished for voting in the referendum.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:51
|
|
|
I was going to chime in and say that, because I live in Brighton, I was going to vote Green and hold my nose at the lovely nuclear policy. Green Wing fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Oct 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:55
|
|
|
Green Wing posted:I was going to chime in and say that, because I live in Brighton, I was going to vote Green and hold my nose at the lovely nuclear policy. I didn't know Caroline Lucas owns 7 loving houses in France, though. I guess that's more of a problem with the political class than anything. APALAB?
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:57
|
|
|
Zephro posted:Is it a stored-value card or does it phone home to some notional "bank account" that the DWP runs? No idea, but its exactly what I thought. But to use online and in shops, it must be the latter, surely? Oh, and it has no council or DWP logos so no one will know your a scrounger ( Yeah, right, using a Bank of Toytown card won't tip anyone off). They will know you are a scrounger when the jumpsuits are issued.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 13:58
|
|
|
I suppose if you can use it online, then yeah, it'd have to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 14:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 12:56 |
|
|
Alertrelic posted:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29461008 Politically, writing it off's a no-brainer, but if we agree everyone should pay the tax they owe then it's not really fair. Everyone else was doing it and It was a long time ago aren't really compelling reasons imo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2014 14:06
|
|