The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[rory_20_uk]

I don't think committing suicide is illegal any more.

In the UK, the NHS is for everyone. Arsenic has no known value apart from being poisonous, delineating is slightly from tobacco and alcohol. As the country has to pay for one's health this gives the country some say in what one intakes.

One could argue that anyone deciding ot do such a tihng is a danger to themselves and hence can be sectioned under the Mental health Act.

[KukriKhan]

As the country has to pay for one's health this gives the country some say in what one intakes

Indeed. That's the aspect of national health care that scares the american right.

[rory_20_uk]

Indeed. That's the aspect of national health care that scares the american right.

Yet they do it already with free emergency treatment - it just costs vastly more this way around.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It reminds of that in law, it is illegal to commit suicide. Hate to think of what punishments for them Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla would come up with just because it is illegal.

The proper punishment was death, which is perfectly logical, as the Law was aimed at preventing a Mortal Sin, by executing them you prevented this and increased their chance of entering heaven.

Perfectly logical.

It is, however, no longer on the Statute books, because these days we try to prevent people reaching that stage.

Also, you say that it is illegal to sell something, so it should be illegal to have it/use it. That is just crazy talk. It would be illegal for a hotdog stall owner to sell hotdogs topped with arsenic, but why should it be illegal for some one to put an arsenic topping on their own food and be punished by the law, in a way the hotdog stall owner would be punished. It just speaks of idiocy. There are reasons as to why the hotdog owner cannot sell an arsenic topping, due to health and safety, but why should it be illegal for some one, with full facts of the risks and of this, to decide to have it? Argubly, the punishment is already recieved from doing that action, having the law laid down on top is just pointless.

That's not the same, Arsenic is legal to sell (but controlled) for some purposes. Illegal drugs are just... illegal. Also, I'm pretty sure it is both illegal to buy or sell arsenic if you believe the intent is to harm (you hotdog analogy would be self-harm).

Edit: I see Rory caught it.

[Vladimir]

Yet they do it already with free emergency treatment - it just costs vastly more this way around.

Exactly. That also angers the Right.

[Boohugh]

Whoever gets into power next is going to both cut spending and raise taxes because they have no choice about it. The rest is quite frankly rather irrelevant because, for the next parliament at least, there won't be any money to actually change policy significantly. I'm just waiting to see who actually has the balls to tell us what spending and which taxes...

[Furunculus]

it should prove a pretty easy guess to figure out which party has the firmest commitment to reduced public spending, and the better track record economic management.

[rory_20_uk]

In the UK democracy, there are far more votes to be won in Denial than squaring up to the truth. The minute you mention cuts you ostracise whichever group it is you feel are going to loose the money; pretending it's all fine and dandy means you loose a tiny number of votes that still have to either abstain or vote for one party of liars.

[Beskar]

Also, the argument of where to cut? as Rory says.

Should we cut welfare? Should we cut pensions again ? Should we cut ournuclear arsenal? Should we cut healthcare and education? Should we stop updating and improving the countrys infrastructure, which destorys the longer term investment and benefits of the future?

A lot of things shouldn't get cut at all, if you are sane. By cutting them, you make a situation worse or worse for the future.

Argubly, we should cut investment where we don't get a return on. Which might sound cruel, but Africa is just a blackhole for money, leave it for Oxfam, etc, to deal with.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Should we cut welfare? Should we cut pensions again ? Should we cut ournuclear arsenal? Should we cut healthcare and education? Should we stop updating and improving the countrys infrastructure, which destorys the longer term investment and benefits of the future?

Cut, no cuts, cut and reform by moving money into conventional forces or research, reform and reform, no cuts, in that order.

Argubly, we should cut investment where we don't get a return on. Which might sound cruel, but Africa is just a blackhole for money, leave it for Oxfam, etc, to deal with.

Once I took precisely that stance. And now, while I still believe that charity is better than foreign aid, I do realize that foreign aid is also a tool used by governments for political leverage, and is therefore useful. I am less hostile to foreign aid because of that argument.

[InsaneApache]

A lot of things shouldn't get cut at all, if you are sane. By cutting them, you make a situation worse or worse for the future.

Leaving aside the sanity of our Prime Mentalist for a moment, there is no choice. The moneys run out. The well is dry. We've lost the paddle and the canoe is leaking. Expect deep cuts and tax increases, especially for the poor.

The thing that amazes me is that some people are actually considering voting for the great snot gobbler and his dysfunctional credo. Must be all those diversity outreach officers one reads about in the Gruniad job vacancy adverts.

[FactionHeir]

I for one think that the benefit system (including local housing allowance) in the UK is way too generous. Make people who are able to work actually work. Benefit recipients should not be able to live a comfy life of staying at home and making more money than those who actually put in effort to go to work even for minimal wage.

There's people in the UK who just act as baby machines because they can get away with doing so and not going to work at all while getting incredible amount of state payments.

Also, benefit payments should be restricted to UK nationals only - not commonwealth + EU nationals.

I also believe that cutting weapons arsenals is a good idea considering that wars will hardly be fought the conventional way and there's way more troops and expensive to upkeep and maintain weaponry around than needed.

Doing so would free up quite a bit of wealth to be invested elsewhere.


Disclaimer:
I am an EU national and not on benefits. I would rather work than be on benefits too. I am outraged that people on benefits can make more than I make for a living.

[Furunculus]

There's people in the UK who just act as baby machines because they can get away with doing so and not going to work at all while getting incredible amount of state payments.

this is absolutely true. they even time it to about seven years to get theb maximum benefits for the minimum babies (period of maximum benefits given to the mum after the child is born).

[rory_20_uk]

First off, the public services need to be massively reduced. These basically mean that all private enterprise has to pay taxes to pay for the state bodies. The bigger the state bodies, the greater the taxes, and hence the competitiveness of the private enterprises decreases.

Housing benefits are paid to individuals (more kids = more money) but also the size of house you get. Completely counter-intuitive that adults are not expected to show any control as the worse their situation gets the state will bail them out again and again. Benefits manage to not only increase taxes, but also to provide inflationary pressures to wages:

1. The amount one would get for no effort compared to working for 40 hours a week
2. The tax on one's earnt salary to pay for others who aren't working

This in turn helps to kill off production of low value goods as their costs are too high.

Social services. A monolith that takes away responsibility for all and doesn't really work. Local reliance and community crumbles as the SS is expected to do it all - after all, there's billions spent on them. The amount of money that has been spent on trying to stop the next "baby P" is easily in the millions. But of course the rate is the same at roughly 1 a week. Without 24 hour supervision someone is going to kill their child. We waste money pretending we can stop it. Young male suicides? 80 a week. Not catching as a story though.

State pensions. Why be thrifty? Why save? You need to have a large pension to make up for the decrease in state pension as it's means tested. Enjoy life now, and then let the state pay for it all.

Education. Why can India do so well with such poverty and we do worse? Why do many other parts of the world? It clearly makes a difference to one's quality of life, so it's worth going for. Not so true here. Education is free, therefore has not perceived value. All are entitled to it, so no need to worry about loosing it. All down to the schools so no need for the parents to do anything.
Big budgets don't equal better results. Everyone to Uni does not automatically equal a more intelligent or even better trained workforce.

But, everyone can vote.

Piss off the Public Sector? c. 20% national votes - and of course all those that use the services
Piss off the unemployed? c. 10% votes
Harshen up long term sickness? Unsure of numbers, but not good.
Take from the elderly? c. 15% and growing.

Bankers? AHA! probably less than 1% Get 'em!

[Boohugh]

I also believe that cutting weapons arsenals is a good idea considering that wars will hardly be fought the conventional way and there's way more troops and expensive to upkeep and maintain weaponry around than needed.

We have too much weaponary around? That must be why the Navy is overworking it's ships and crew (when it even has enough money to put them to sea) to fulfil just its basic obligations, the RAF and Navy are being forced to scrap helicopters despite there being a shortage of them and other squadrons despite there being no replacement ready leaving a capability gap in the sky, and you never ever read about the equipment shortages the Army and Marines suffer in Afghanistan, right?

You know when I last heard this arguement about no longer needing conventional weaponary because the way wars were being fought had changed...let me think...oh yes, it was in 1982! Oh and of course there was the time before that...now when was it...oh yeah the 1920's/30's, can't possibly think what happened soon after that though...

The whole point of keeping an effective armed forces is that they are prepared for any situation where they may be needed because you never know what will happen in the future. Just because not all the weaponary we possess is being used in current operations does not preclude the fact it may be needed in the future.

Anyway, back to the spending cuts in general...seems Darling has come out and said there will be big cuts before we even have an election. Who wants to bet they will be long-term, well planned cuts for the better of the country rather than popular but ill-thought out cuts that will have worse long term consequences?

Oh, and I did like his quote at the end:

"Most people know that public spending has doubled over the last 10 to 12 years, so we are coming off a much higher base, " he said.

"We are not talking about a situation where we have already cut to the bone."

At least they know they've been throwing our money away rather than spending it only where it was needed...

[rory_20_uk]

I think that a Strategic Spending Review is overdue to sort out exactly what we should be doing and what we should not be doing. This would enable us to stop trying to do everything but never quite enough to succeed at any of them and so some things well.

Personally:

1. RAF hasn't got much of a need for an independant role. Amalgamate the relevant bits into the Nazy and Army
2. Less on sexy hardware without thought to use. Eurofighters might be technically great, but are so few in number they will be unable to make a strategic difference. In a serious conflict they;ll quickly be worn out or destroyed by missiles.
3. Massive blue fleet navies are pretty and I imagine for men who'se own members are failing are reassuringly phallic. We need to protect our vestiges of Empire, but that's about it. Several, smaller modern ships can deal with any threat that we would be involved in. If the Falklands are a concern, build some decent bunkers, a lot of SAM sites and station some troops over there. Showing up with a naval force and undertaking a amphibious landing shows we were not prepared.
4. Get rid of heavy armour. Blitzkrieg was great, but we've not got the numbers for this, nor a potential conventional foe. They cost a lot of money and do practically nothing. We can barely move them out of Germany in a reasonable time scale.
5. Increase special forces and appropriate equipment for their use.

In essence have a small force that can defend the homelands, detect and pick off pirate threats and do what they do well; it will also mean that we'd be unable to get entangled in wars. We might possibly have more respect with the current system, but we so quickly become overstretched I don't imagine that this lasts.

And a military budget that is shrinking by the year needs to be rectified as building up at the last minute for defence is expensive and risky at best.

[Furunculus]

I also believe that cutting weapons arsenals is a good idea considering that wars will hardly be fought the conventional way and there's way more troops and expensive to upkeep and maintain weaponry around than needed.

while your suggestion seems quite anodyne in its simplicity and apple-pie-is-good bon homie, it is a very dangerous sentiment that if applied could make the world a very much more dangerous place for Britain.

before i am willing to discuss the multitudinous benefits of unilateral disarmament any further i would invite you to read the first link in my sig................. and then come back and tell that you still think chopping defence spending (which is what your anodyne statement really means in practice) is a good idea.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I couldn't help but think there was a peculair similarity between the chilly bleakness of this picture taken today, and Britain's electoral forecast. Bleak and dismal. Not a single spot of solace to be found.

Brrr...

(All-white and no global warming. Could this predict a BNP landslide?)
(Note how Ireland is still green. Nothing can beat the greeness out of the Emerald Isle.)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think that a Strategic Spending Review is overdue to sort out exactly what we should be doing and what we should not be doing. This would enable us to stop trying to do everything but never quite enough to succeed at any of them and so some things well.

UK defence spending is already low, 2.4% in 2005 according to Wiki, and I believe still falling. There is a strong arguement that it should rise, as it is already well below the Cold War peak. Now, if you would allow me to respond to your points.

RAF hasn't got much of a need for an independant role. Amalgamate the relevant bits into the Nazy and Army.

Financially, this may make sense. However, the RAF was created because Army Commanders are usually not pilots, and therefore do not understand pilots and aircraft. I don't believe this has changed much, and the need for the RAF remains so that there is an Air Marshall to stand up to the General.

Less on sexy hardware without thought to use. Eurofighters might be technically great, but are so few in number they will be unable to make a strategic difference. In a serious conflict they;ll quickly be worn out or destroyed by missiles.

True, we need more Eurofighters, or a cheaper interceptor designed to launch missiles from long range.

Massive blue fleet navies are pretty and I imagine for men who'se own members are failing are reassuringly phallic. We need to protect our vestiges of Empire, but that's about it. Several, smaller modern ships can deal with any threat that we would be involved in. If the Falklands are a concern, build some decent bunkers, a lot of SAM sites and station some troops over there. Showing up with a naval force and undertaking a amphibious landing shows we were not prepared.

Ships are useful for so many things, including patrols, anti-piracy, hummanitarian efforts, etc. Also, they are built in Civillian dockyards, which are major local employers when successful.

Get rid of heavy armour. Blitzkrieg was great, but we've not got the numbers for this, nor a potential conventional foe. They cost a lot of money and do practically nothing. We can barely move them out of Germany in a reasonable time scale.

The main purpose of Armour is to support infantry. Also, if you dispand a particular Corps it is incredibly difficult to recreate it. Be assured, the army keeps twice as many tanks moffballed as in service, so that armour can be mobalised if needed.

Increase special forces and appropriate equipment for their use.

Special forces are drawn from the rank and file, less rank and file means either less Special Forces or a drop in quality.

In essence have a small force that can defend the homelands, detect and pick off pirate threats and do what they do well; it will also mean that we'd be unable to get entangled in wars. We might possibly have more respect with the current system, but we so quickly become overstretched I don't imagine that this lasts.

And a military budget that is shrinking by the year needs to be rectified as building up at the last minute for defence is expensive and risky at best.

What you describe is what we currently have, "a small force". Only two British Divisions can be deployed at short notice, and the total stength of the regular army, trained, is around 98,000. Consider that as a proportion of the total population of the UK.

[naut]

As a side note. My Scottish friends are of the opinion that if the Tories come to power Scotland will push harder for independence. Which in all honesty would be a bit of a disaster.

[Beskar]

The main purpose of Armour is to support infantry. Also, if you dispand a particular Corps it is incredibly difficult to recreate it. Be assured, the army keeps twice as many tanks moffballed as in service, so that armour can be mobalised if needed.

I have seen some of the new tanks in relevant information and even though I am into the military hardware, some of them really do look sexy.

Not "looking sexy" in a sexual/looks manner, but they look very attractive to having them deployed in the armed forces as they can basically serve a lot of functions. One tank (I believe it is one of the latest german ones) has an inbuilt super computer, very advanced radar, anti-rockets, hard-plated, automatic guns, etc. Basically, it looked like it could probably serve as a one-man army.

By this, tanks can be so functional now-a-days and so versaille, that you could see normal infantry corps having small armoured detached to assist in co-ordinating and give support.


I don't know how much these sorts of tanks are in service, from what you read and see, I could imagine British armed forces using re-conditioned panzers and sherman tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Probably to justify replacing them)

[Furunculus]

As a side note. My Scottish friends are of the opinion that if the Tories come to power Scotland will push harder for independence. Which in all honesty would be a bit of a disaster.

If the Scots really are that wedded that to their anti-tory politics that they would vote yes in a referendum on independence, then bring cameron on, the one thing that makes my teeth grate more than anything else is the continual whining and indecision from north of the border. if they are that undependable, and lack any clear commitment to the 'family' then we are better off without them.


---------------------------------------------------------------


in other news, a mainstream political party finally does something to wrest the immigration debate away from the BNP and its million plus disillusioned voters:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/be...n-immigration/

[Furunculus]

1. UK defence spending is already low, 2.4% in 2005 according to Wiki, and I believe still falling. There is a strong arguement that it should rise, as it is already well below the Cold War peak. Now, if you would allow me to respond to your points.

2. Financially, this may make sense. However, the RAF was created because Army Commanders are usually not pilots, and therefore do not understand pilots and aircraft. I don't believe this has changed much, and the need for the RAF remains so that there is an Air Marshall to stand up to the General.

3. True, we need more Eurofighters, or a cheaper interceptor designed to launch missiles from long range.

4. Ships are useful for so many things, including patrols, anti-piracy, hummanitarian efforts, etc. Also, they are built in Civillian dockyards, which are major local employers when successful.

5. The main purpose of Armour is to support infantry. Also, if you dispand a particular Corps it is incredibly difficult to recreate it. Be assured, the army keeps twice as many tanks moffballed as in service, so that armour can be mobalised if needed.

6. Special forces are drawn from the rank and file, less rank and file means either less Special Forces or a drop in quality.

7. What you describe is what we currently have, "a small force". Only two British Divisions can be deployed at short notice, and the total stength of the regular army, trained, is around 98,000. Consider that as a proportion of the total population of the UK.

1. UK Defence spending was down as low as 2.2% of GDP in 2008/09, whilst we had been fighting two far off wars for most of the preceding decade.
As a result of Broons decision to use core funding for operations it is almost certainly going to slip to at least 2.1% of GDP.

2. The RAF was created way before WW2, and it was durng the build up to WW2 that we finally cottoned on to joint forces and unified command which is one of the reasons we were so successful, and ever since that point we have had a rotating unified command structure. We do not need a separate RAF anymore, which is not to say that it would not be desirable to have such an entity.

3. We don't, 230 eurofighters was a cold war requirement which for contract reasons we were stuck with as the withdrawal penalties would cost nearly as much as buying the aircraft in the first place. ironically, it was britain that demanded these penalties be put in place because our european partners, notably germany, had an irritating tendency to go wobbly on the program every thirty seconds demanding capability cuts and number reductions, a poor way to run a multinational acquisition program costing hundreds of billions! a very wise american officer once said; "there is nothing more expensive than having the second best airforce in the world!" and he is right. the eurofighter is a good aircraft, as is the F35 and we need both, just not in cold war numbers.

4. The Navy has been the key to Britain becoming, being, and continuing to be a Great Power. It has always been, and always will be the most important military arm that Britain has.

5. Tanks are useful, this was demonstrated in iraq in 2003, long after they had (once again) be written off as irrelevant to the modern battlefield. And you are correct, we do maintain enormous air conditioned warehouses discretely around the country where huge numbers of Challenger 1 tanks and various other AFV's are kept actively maintained as a reserve. Given that we currently operate only 320 Challenger 2 tanks currently, with that likely to be cut in half in the next five years, we might consider it a capability we don't need to make ourself in future, sad as it might be given that we invented the first useful tank.

6. Agreed, we have probably expanded the special forces as much as they can be given that the Army itself numbers less than 100,000.

7. What we are is a Great Power, one of only three (including the yanks and france) in the world that can fight a high intensity land war at the opposite ends of the earth, and one of only two (including the yanks) who can do so as independent in-theatre command.
We also have the ability to launch opposed landings via amphibious and expeditionary warfare anywhere we please, and sustain and support it in theatre.
Along with the nuclear deterrent this defines the three core capabilities of 98 Strategic Defence Review (Labours greatest success), though we sadly never provided the funding to maintain it (Labours greatest failure), which is the reason why the Royal United Services Institute wrote the report listed in my sig asking the question; how can we maintain Britain as a Great Power in the 21st century given the funding constraints. Read it.

[Subotan]

Kick pensions all the way back to 70, and maybe beyond. They're the single biggest cost for the government. The pensions sytem itself was designed when men's life expectancy didn't even reach up to 65, and was never intended to provide a golden twilight of twenty odd years. It will also increase the size of the labour force

[rory_20_uk]

Kick pensions all the way back to 70, and maybe beyond. They're the single biggest cost for the government. The pensions system itself was designed when men's life expectancy didn't even reach up to 65, and was never intended to provide a golden twilight of twenty odd years. It will also increase the size of the labour force

When the age of retirement was first started it was 70. As the life expectancy increased, the age to retire decreased

Both labour and the conservatives are very slowly increasing the age of retirement. There are a lot of baby boomers who with throw toys out of the pram if they're made to work for their own retirement. Yes, the country can't afford it in the long term - but the next 30 years is OK, yeah?

[Subotan]

When the age of retirement was first started it was 70. As the life expectancy increased, the age to retire decreased

Haha, what terrible policy making!

Both labour and the conservatives are very slowly increasing the age of retirement. There are a lot of baby boomers who with throw toys out of the pram if they're made to work for their own retirement. Yes, the country can't afford it in the long term - but the next 30 years is OK, yeah?

What's annoying is although it's totally out of the question for Ebeneezer to be working when he's 70, it's perfectly okay and even necessary for me to. I will be working to subsidise a way of life which I will not be able to enjoy, and just because neither party has the balls to make sensible fiscal decisions.

[Vladimir]

Leaving aside the sanity of our Prime Mentalist for a moment, there is no choice. The moneys run out. The well is dry. We've lost the paddle and the canoe is leaking. Expect deep cuts and tax increases, especially for the poor.

The thing that amazes me is that some people are actually considering voting for the great snot gobbler and his dysfunctional credo. Must be all those diversity outreach officers one reads about in the Gruniad job vacancy adverts.

I'm late to the game on this post but have questions: How do you raise taxes on poor people? Do your poor people have money?

I've argued for raising taxes on our poor people but everyone here says they don't have any money.

Is this some sort of poverty game whereby we can eliminate poverty by simply eliminating the metric we use to assess poverty? Because I'm all for eliminating poverty too.

The UK still has a middle class. I recommend taking money from them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Boohugh]

I'm late to the game on this post but have questions: How do you raise taxes on poor people? Do your poor people have money?

I've argued for raising taxes on our poor people but everyone here says they don't have any money.

I guess our poor people are better off than poor people elsewhere, they are only poor by a relative standard in the UK. In terms of taxing the poor, the implication is to tax working people on the lowest income or raise indirect taxes.

Raising income tax directly is always very unpopular and it looks terrible if you do it to those on the lowest incomes so is unlikely, but raising the level of national insurance slightly (which is basically another form of income tax by a different name) is a possibility as that is more likely to slip under the radar.

The alternative is to raise indirect taxes such as VAT, alcohol, fuel, tobacco, etc. These will of course hit everyone but they affect the poorest most because they have the lowest disposable income. Statistically, poorer people are generally heavier smokers/drinkers than better off people and so would share a disproportionate burden of any increase in those sorts of duties too. These taxes would hit those on benefits, not only those who work, and so arguably affect the poorest people of all: those that require state help just to survive as they don't/can't provide for themselves (assuming a benefit system that actually does what it's designed for!).


In terms of why we are likely to tax the poor - it's basically because it's the least politically dangerous (as anywhere else, our politicians rarely have the stones to take the morally upstanding route and rather take the path of least resistance). Richer people don't mind so much about increases to the indirect taxes (which is the most likely option for raising taxes) because they have the disposable income to absorb it without being put out too much. There is likely to be tax increases for the richest people too, and they are more likely to come in the form of raising income tax on the highest incomes but currently that would actually be seen as a popular move by many people due to the (media-induced) image that the world recession was caused by a small minority of very rich people and nobody else. It will be the middle classes that will escape from large tax increases most (initially at least) because that is where the election is likely to be won or lost.

[Vladimir]

Thank you. I was having a little fun with his post.

Yea, I can see your government, any government, raising regressive tax rates. Many in the U.S. want to implement a national sales or value-added tax. Most people who support these don't know what a regressive tax is and that we tried that before. Sales/sin aka regressive taxes is how the early federal government tried to support itself. Sales taxes are also largely the purview of the states.

Good luck guys.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Banquo:

I think Brown's survival reminds me of the GOP nominations of Dole in 1996 and McCain just passed. With no clear "voice of leadership" or clear-cut goals ASIDE from retaining power, he's just a place holder for the inevitable.


To the last few posters on UK defense spending etc.

2% is either a) drastically too little OR b) at least twice what it needs to be. The UK needs to decide the role it wishes to have and to pay accordingly.