UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80

How do you intend to vote in the 2019 General Election if eligible?

  • Brexit Party

    Votes: 30 4.3%
  • Conservatives

    Votes: 73 10.6%
  • DUP

    Votes: 5 0.7%
  • Green

    Votes: 23 3.3%
  • Labour

    Votes: 355 51.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 58 8.4%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 3 0.4%
  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 9 1.3%
  • SNP

    Votes: 19 2.8%
  • UKIP

    Votes: 6 0.9%
  • Independent

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • Other (BNP, Change UK, UUP and anyone else that I have forgotten)

    Votes: 10 1.4%
  • Not voting

    Votes: 57 8.3%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 41 5.9%

  • Total voters
    690
  • Poll closed .
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sun_tzu

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Nope, but I count myself lucky that I'm not jealous of wealthy people. Billionaires pay tax don't they? Conservatives are the party for anybody with aspirations to better themselves and I truly believe that.
I believe the top 1%of earners pay 27% of income tax.., I do wonder how much more some people think they should pay
 

hubbuh

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Wow, the moment I even consider Labour as a potential option I come across shit like this. If you like keeping your hard earned cash, don't vote Labour!
:rolleyes: I don't even know what to fecking say. Do you honestly believe the Tories are looking out for anyone other than themselves? For vulnerable people? They have engineered millions of people into a trap of deep poverty. These are the people that got us here in the first place by reversing decades of anti-austerity policies. They should be fecking shot into space, let alone reelected.
 

Red Dreams

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:rolleyes: I don't even know what to fecking say. Do you honestly believe the Tories are looking out for anyone other than themselves? For vulnerable people? They have engineered millions of people into a trap of deep poverty. These are the people that got us here in the first place by reversing decades of anti-austerity policies. They should be fecking shot into space, let alone reelected.
shot in their heads to be precise.
 

Zlatattack

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Nope, but I count myself lucky that I'm not jealous of wealthy people. Billionaires pay tax don't they? Conservatives are the party for anybody with aspirations to better themselves and I truly believe that.
Well they don't. Billionaires don't all pay their fair share of taxes. This is the problem. They do this perfectly legally through tax avoidance. The law needs to change to make tax avoidance more difficult. Currently the only people who can really take advantage of tax avoidance laws are the wealthy. That's not particularly fair. Labour will make it harder to do tax avoidance, so that those with the most in society, pay a fair share back into it.

Under a Labour government you will pay 5% more tax on anything you earn over £80,000 a year. If your business makes more than £300,000 a year in PROFIT you'll pay 6% more tax on anything over that. If your business makes a PROFIT less than £300,000 a year you'll pay 1% more tax.

I don't think that's unfair. 95% of the population would not be paying any more tax under a Labour government.
 
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Paul the Wolf

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again we have this fun thing where centrists blame their own ignorance of Labour policy on Corbyn/Labour.

the policy is for a second referendum with remain vs a genuine leave option

if that doesn’t satisfy you and you want to undemocratically revoke a referendum result fair enough. but don’t claim the labour policy isn’t clear
It's the genuine leave option that bothers me, Corbyn's proposal isn't realistic in the slightest and to claim Labour is a remain party is just not true. Any type of leaving is not remaining. They could claim that they would back remain - in a referendum, full stop - but they maintain the 'fantasy deal negoiation' to try to keep the leave part of their vote onside.
 

ZupZup

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I believe the top 1%of earners pay 27% of income tax.., I do wonder how much more some people think they should pay
Just imagine the sheer magnitude of the inequality in earnings between the mega rich and the poor that make this true... and that's your argument?
 

fergieisold

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:rolleyes: I don't even know what to fecking say. Do you honestly believe the Tories are looking out for anyone other than themselves? For vulnerable people? They have engineered millions of people into a trap of deep poverty. These are the people that got us here in the first place by reversing decades of anti-austerity policies. They should be fecking shot into space, let alone reelected.
Poverty is a difficult measure. Doing some fact checking it appears poverty has fallen or is relatively stable under the Tory Government but it depends what metric you use. This article is out of date...but here it is anyway.

https://fullfact.org/economy/poverty-or-down/
 

fergieisold

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Well they don't. Billionaires don't all pay their fair share of taxes. This is the problem. They do this perfectly legally through tax avoidance. The law needs to change to make tax avoidance more difficult. Currently the only people who can really take advantage of tax avoidance laws are the wealthy. That's not particularly fair. Labour will make it harder to do tax avoidance, so that those with the most in society, pay a fair share back into it.
I agree with measures to reduce tax avoidance that is for sure. It is the governments fault not the individual that this kind of thing goes on. If I were rich would I use loop holes to pay less? Of course I would!

People like you pretending they hold some moral high ground over those on the left are utterly tiresome.
The irony here is staggering.
 

finneh

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You say it like these are bad things.

abolish tuition fees - Assume for a minute they do want to do this. It'll cost £100 billion to wipe out existing student debt. Boris's brexit deal with cost £70 billion. I know where i'd rather that money went.

make the NHS 100% public - As it should be. Privatisation has been a massive drain on the NHS finances. Nurses on NHS contracts are quiting to work for agencies where they get paid twice as much and do much less work. Everyone is making money at every turn, cleaning, cooking, parking, office supplies, IT. There will always be involvement with the private sector, but right now it's a cash cow at the expense of patient care.

nationalise rail - When existing contracts end they don't want to renew them. The East coast mainline does perfectly well nationalised, goes to pot under private ownership. If Germany can run the buses, trains and freight in 12 European countries - why can't we use the same private/public model in the UK?

introduce rent controls - Much needed. Rent is higher than mortgages, houses are being bought regularly to be put on rent, prices are driven up by this, forcing more people to rent and less to buy. We also need controls on rogue landlords.

abolish Trident - Not to eager on this personally. A nuclear detterent is probably still useful. We'd be much safer though if we took the Scandanavian approach to foreign policy though - rather than the dreams of empire. Trident isn't going to keep the Russians at bay if they wanted to invade, we don't have enough bombs to wipe out Russia, whereas they do. The MAD doctrine doesn't apply. Seems wiser to invest in the navy, airforce, army, a military cyber wing and invest in missile defence or hypersonic missiles - rather than trident.

limit capitalism - You mean ask them to pay taxes just like you and i do? Or prevent them from behaving in the manner that caused the global financial crash of 2008?

jizz money all over every single public service. - Public services? Who needs them. If we'd all just die at our desks it'd be much more cost effective.
It depends on your viewpoint of course.

Abolishing tuition fees for example would be a tax cut for the upper and middle classes who attend university to a far higher degree, paid for by poorer people who don't. If the children of the upper and middle classes deserve a £50k tax bung then poorer people who don't attend university should have access to the same money in their banks. I'd prefer to give £50k to a trainee plumber to invest in his new business than £50k to an Oxford undergraduate who's just finished his studies at Eton (however there isn't the finances to do either).

Rent controls likewise incentivise landlords to allow their properties to fall into disrepair, as if you limit the price they can charge the only way for them to maintain profit it to reduce maintenance costs. This makes rent control counterproductive as you end up having worse housing for poor people. It also actively increases rent over time (see @EwanI Ted post above).

In terms of capitalism I was referring to (amongst other things) forcing companies into allowing potentially unqualified employees to sit on boards, as well as the seizing of private assets etc (although I'd argue US government's negligence in the financial crisis was more important than any single bank).

Abolishing Trident is self evidently stupid given the current geopolitical landscape.

In terms of public services we're currently running a budget deficit and yet have every single department saying they're underfunded. Benefits, Pensions, NHS, Social Care, Police, Fire Service, Defence, Education, Public Sector pay, Local Authority... How can literally every department be underfunded but at the same time we're spending more than we earn? What we earn is also at a record peacetime high as a % of GDP, so we're also taxing more than ever before. So we have highest ever tax take combined with a budget deficit, but we're still not spending enough? To me that's an oxymoron.

In terms of the NHS some private providers are proven to be more effective, cheaper and more efficient than the NHS. Are they really saying we should ban Great Ormond Street for example, or Lloyds Pharmacy, or Specsavers? This is a problem I have with policies based on gimmicks rather than evidence. The same is truth of Johnson's 20,000 police pledge... The police could absolutely use the £1b it would cost but let them decide where to spend it (spoiler alert: it would not be 20,000 new officers).

Labour conference this year was in Caroline Lucas' constituency and I saw lots of Momentum activists in 'Labour Green New Deal' t-shirts.
Makes sense. I'd imagine the Labour manifesto will have a flagship green policy which will render the Green party superfluous.
 
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Paul the Wolf

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It is if the country is remain, isn't that why we want a referendum because we think it is? And if it isn't remain and leave win then I'd rather a Labour brexit than boris one.

You're correct in that i think Labour are over selling what they might get as i don't think they'll get much at all but do i mind if they try? No
If the Tories had the same approach as Corbyn they would be laughed at.

So the referendum will be between what , because for sure it won't be between Remain and Corbyn's proposal.
 

Honest John

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Nope, but I count myself lucky that I'm not jealous of wealthy people. Billionaires pay tax don't they? Conservatives are the party for anybody with aspirations to better themselves and I truly believe that.
Eventually a tax the rich regime to fund public services and help the poor will lead to the rich leaving and destroying anyone with a bit of enterprise about them. Nationalised industries will become less efficient and more unionised and those unions will hold the country to ransom for more pay. So those industries will become so un-profitable that they will have to be subsidised by the tax payer. There will now be fewer rich to tax and so the burden will be widened out to the general masses.


Year Lower rate (%) Basic rate (%) Higher rate(s)a (%) Lower rate limit (£ p.a.) Basic rate limit
(£ p.a.)
1973-74 — 30 40-75 — 5,000
1974-75 — 33 38-63,73,83 — 4,500
1975-76 — 35 40-75,83 — 4,500
1976-77 — 35 40-75,83 — 5,000
1977-78 — 34 40-75,83 — 6,000
1978-79 25b 33 40-75,83 — 8,000


Edit: Oh and unemployment will increase substantially.
 

EwanI Ted

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4% margin of error with 90% accuracy
2% margin of error with 66% accuracy

If Conservatives and Brexit do form a pact the only real question is who gets the 2nd highest vote share libs or labour)
Fascinating echo of the 2017 General Election. The first poll conducted (ICM) after the election was announced back then was

Con - 46%
Lab - 25%
Lib - 11%
UKIP - 8%
Green - 4%

Looking back at the last election, it took a good 3 weeks for Labour's polling to show signs of improvement, but after a month it was well into the mid-30s. So if Labour are going to repeat the trick we may not see it happen immediately but we should see clear signs long before Election Day.
 

Ekkie Thump

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Nope, but I count myself lucky that I'm not jealous of wealthy people. Billionaires pay tax don't they? Conservatives are the party for anybody with aspirations to better themselves and I truly believe that.
:lol:

Only if that means personal £££££ and exorbitant wealth. Which, presumably, is the only value you can imagine aspiring to.
 

fergieisold

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Eventually a tax the rich regime to fund public services and help the poor will lead to the rich leaving and destroying anyone with a bit of enterprise about them. Nationalised industries will become less efficient and more unionised and those unions will hold the country to ransom for more pay. So those industries will become so un-profitable that they will have to be subsidised by the tax payer. There will now be fewer rich to tax and so the burden will be widened out to the general masses.


Year Lower rate (%) Basic rate (%) Higher rate(s)a (%) Lower rate limit (£ p.a.) Basic rate limit
(£ p.a.)
1973-74 — 30 40-75 — 5,000
1974-75 — 33 38-63,73,83 — 4,500
1975-76 — 35 40-75,83 — 4,500
1976-77 — 35 40-75,83 — 5,000
1977-78 — 34 40-75,83 — 6,000
1978-79 25b 33 40-75,83 — 8,000


Edit: Oh and unemployment will increase substantially.
Those are some scary tax rates!
 

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
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Please ban me from this thread before I get banned from this thread.
 

sun_tzu

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Fascinating echo of the 2017 General Election. The first poll conducted (ICM) after the election was announced back then was

Con - 46%
Lab - 25%
Lib - 11%
UKIP - 8%
Green - 4%

Looking back at the last election, it took a good 3 weeks for Labour's polling to show signs of improvement, but after a month it was well into the mid-30s. So if Labour are going to repeat the trick we may not see it happen immediately but we should see clear signs long before Election Day.
Indeed it will be interesting to see if it was the absolute boy smashing it last time or the maybot malfunctioning

I have my suspicion it's more the latter but yeah if labour have not made strides in the next month they are going to need a scandle or an external crisis to damage Johnson (not impossible given its Boris)
 

fergieisold

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Indeed it will be interesting to see if it was the absolute boy smashing it last time or the maybot malfunctioning

I have my suspicion it's more the latter but yeah if labour have not made strides in the next month they are going to need a scandle or an external crisis to damage Johnson (not impossible given its Boris)
I was wondering what the polls were last time around. Certainly makes this election interesting and it is by no means a done deal!
 

DOTA

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Indeed it will be interesting to see if it was the absolute boy smashing it last time or the maybot malfunctioning

I have my suspicion it's more the latter but yeah if labour have not made strides in the next month they are going to need a scandle or an external crisis to damage Johnson (not impossible given its Boris)
Doesn't need a crisis or a scandal. Boris is entirely capable of just coming across as utterly incompetent, out of touch and unlikable.
 

sun_tzu

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I'd be delighted to pay them.
83% income tax...
so if lets say your on 104K a year - cracking salary right and yes you have probably had to work hard and do a lot of training and have a lot of responsibility you might be a doctor or something? ... but its 2K a week or £400 a day or £40 an hour... cracking...only your actually getting £6.80 take home
the london living wage is £10.55 per hour - and take of 30% tax and thats £7.39 take home
Im sure you would be bending over backwards to do those extra shifts in A&E knowing that the payment for spending that extra time away from your family is less than the car park attendant... I bet you would feel totally valued for the life and death decisions you were making... so much so you for sure wouldnt want to go and work in america or australia?
 

Ekkie Thump

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83% income tax...
so if lets say your on 104K a year - cracking salary right and yes you have probably had to work hard and do a lot of training and have a lot of responsibility you might be a doctor or something? ... but its 2K a week or £400 a day or £40 an hour... cracking...only your actually getting £6.80 take home
the london living wage is £10.55 per hour - and take of 30% tax and thats £7.39 take home
Im sure you would be bending over backwards to do those extra shifts in A&E knowing that the payment for spending that extra time away from your family is less than the car park attendant... I bet you would feel totally valued for the life and death decisions you were making... so much so you for sure wouldnt want to go and work in america or australia?
Marginal tax rates and inflation how do they work? At no point was 104k taxed at 83%.

Lets take 1973 as the benchmark. Accounting for inflation the 2018 equivalent would mean only 14k of my 104k salary would be taxed at 55%. 60k of my salary would have been taxed at 30% and I'd need to be earning over 240k before I hit the top rate of 75%.
 

villain

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83% income tax...
so if lets say your on 104K a year - cracking salary right and yes you have probably had to work hard and do a lot of training and have a lot of responsibility you might be a doctor or something? ... but its 2K a week or £400 a day or £40 an hour... cracking...only your actually getting £6.80 take home
the london living wage is £10.55 per hour - and take of 30% tax and thats £7.39 take home
Im sure you would be bending over backwards to do those extra shifts in A&E knowing that the payment for spending that extra time away from your family is less than the car park attendant... I bet you would feel totally valued for the life and death decisions you were making... so much so you for sure wouldnt want to go and work in america or australia?
Honestly, what a ridiculous post.
 

Sweet Square

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Why's that then? Is it because I have a different view of how things work vs your own? Charming!
You do realise you questioned the homeless man living in bin and accepted thats part of ''society'' rather than the fact a tiny amount of people have billions in wealth.

Maybe They Live wasn't just a 80's sci movie after all.
 

ZupZup

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How many billionaires live in the UK?
How many billionaires will live in the UK if Corbyn gets in?
So, a billionaire currently living in the UK... who could already save a lot in tax by moving elsewhere but has clearly chosen not to. Is suddenly going to move away because they have to pay a bit more in tax? Studies have actually shown that most billionaires don't tend to move to pay a bit less tax because in reality, it's fairly negligible to them and where they live is usually based on where they have settled, have family, children etc.
 

Fingeredmouse

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I am in a high tax band. I would gladly pay more and see that as a moral obligation. Indeed, I already do than most of the UK as I live in Scotland.

The conflation with high tax rates for top earners and some ideologically based repression of entrepreneurs is missing the point entirely around having a fair society based on redistribution of wealth.

The tax burden is proportionally far greater (tax is not just income tax) for the vast majority than the 1%. If you think that the taxation policy of the Tory party benefits the average working man you're not paying attention.

This is not about a race to the bottom or trying to steal your savings. It's about society and fairness and the fact that people are so keen to protect the staggering, unspendable, obscene wealth of a tiny proportion of the population over the betterment of society (and, if we must focus on the individual, their own lives) is astonishing to me. And yes, they pay more tax (on income they cannot creatively account for) in hard volume. Of course they do and should.

I am reading views, in this supposed left wing echo chamber, that I find depressing and never encounter in my actual life.

I want to live in a fairer society. It is fair that the richer are taxed more. When those riches are very high, then so, relatively, should tax be. This is fundamental and very important to me.

The UK elections will not reflect these views however and I, and the majority of my fellow Scots, will see another layer of distance between our politics and those of Westminster accumulate. This saddens me.
 

Classical Mechanic

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So, a billionaire currently living in the UK... who could already save a lot in tax by moving elsewhere but has clearly chosen not to. Is suddenly going to move away because they have to pay a bit more in tax? Studies have actually shown that most billionaires don't tend to move to pay a bit less tax because in reality, it's fairly negligible to them and where they live is usually based on where they have settled, have family, children etc.
Well yeah, they've all got it offshore already so not paying a higher rate of tax isn't much of a worry.
 
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