David Cameron's Tory govt has a record 27% lead over Corbyn's Labour shadow cabinet...

[ROSM]

I'm sure Conservative voters would be mortified to hear of your disapproval.

You would almost certainly blame them if there was record unemployment perhaps the fact there are record numbers of people in employment could be considered something they've done right. Halving the deficit, overseeing an economy doing better than most of our major competitors, introducing a living wage, EU referendum are some other examples.

Let's be honest even if they had the best record of any government in history you would still not vote for them just because they are Tories.

Depends how you count employment? Self employed, part time employed, zero hours contracts....

 

[jackanada]

should have working benefits in the first place. how about cutting the tax of lower earners instead? working benefits just create dependency on the state where there shouldn't be.

That's large tax avoiding companies dependent on the state to top up their workers wages to a point they can feed themselves.
Let's take amazon as an example, paying 1.5 million tax on sales of £3 billion.
Given 8 million public money to build a warehouse in Wales.
Employs 3000-9000 people with seasonal variations, the vast majority on minimum wage with no contract.
So taxpayers we pay for the upkeep of the pool of unemployed they can pick up casual workers from, top up wages for anyone with dependents who work there, provide healthcare for all those workers, the upkeep of all the roads the trucks go out on and provide the security and rule of law that allows them to do business.
And it doesn't even increase jobs as for every 2 jobs amazon 'create' 5 are lost on the high street.
Gideon reckons he did a good job there too.

 

[Titanic]

Depends how you count employment? Self employed, part time employed, zero hours contracts....

Is that better or worse, for the individual and the country, than being on unemployment benefits?

 

[Gullflyinghigh]

A general question regarding these polls; are they any different (as in a track record of being accurate, or something along those lines) to those widely mocked for getting the election result so stupendously wrong?

I'm not coming down in support of either 'side' here, because I absolutely cannot be bothered, but after the derision of the 'asking the wrong people' excuses rolled out a few weeks back is now the right time for poll results to be used to lord it over others?

Not that I think they're that wrong mind, if at all, it just seems a strange time to point to polls as something definitive.

 

[ROSM]

Is that better or worse, for the individual and the country, than being on unemployment benefits?

Depends how you define good for the country

Financially or morally?

Putting people into poverty, making a demand of foodbanks, allowing the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer

I'd say that's not great for the country

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Depends how you count employment? Self employed, part time employed, zero hours contracts....

According to the Office for National Statistics.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

It's gonna get (even) bleak(er) for many by the end of this Government.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ast-to-be-lost-by-end-of-decade-a6840641.html

 

[Seagull58]

It's the hypocrisy that is the problem.

The problem with The Tory party (and there are problems with ALL parties, for example Blair was a money grubbing, war monger) is that they are basically the political wing of the rich. They exist solely to protect the interests of the nation's elite, the top 1%. Their policy, beyond all the bluster, is to provide just enough to just enough people in order that they can just about claim they support the average UK citizen and prevent dissent.

Although, Cameron I think, will do the party damage in his second stay in office because he seems to make no secret of his contempt for the poor. The same fate awaits him as it did Thatcher. They wield too much power, too publicly and the elite get twitchy as people start to turn against them and they get rid. A quiet, steady draining of wealth from the lower classes and ensuring it stays at the top by placing and maintaining tax law loopholes ,whilst appearing to help the nation is the policy that the elite and career Tory's prefer. A little waving of the austerity stick by Cameron and Osborne will be tolerated by the corporate elite for a while but soon it'll be "SShhh, you're giving the game away" and he'll be got rid of. The last thing the top 1% want is the poor to be alerted to the fact that they are being robbed.

Especially in light of the investigation into Cameron's alleged breaching of human rights, the two recent court victory's for people affected by the so called bedroom tax and the revelation that Labour did not cause the UK's financial problems (a claim the Tory's had been desperately hanging onto as a reason to introduce their draconian and uneccessary austerity measures). You can't tax a country out of debt. Add to these the Google tax debacle and the fact that Cameron and Osborne's own private company have paid no UK tax, EVER and this poll looks pretty shaky.

Why does any of that make the poll shaky? They had a poll and the Tories came out 27% ahead. Don't you believe the result?

 

[beorhthelm]

That's large tax avoiding companies dependent on the state to top up their workers wages to a point they can feed themselves.

why conflate the issue of personal taxation with the egregious use of tax law or government largess towards companies. they aren't the same, one does not happen because of or in spite of the other. if you want to force a link, i can argue that if you remove the state subsidy on wages and you increase wage demands. we could also discuss all the other business and industry that gain from government aid and realise how hypocritical it is to highlight one company.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

A general question regarding these polls; are they any different (as in a track record of being accurate, or something along those lines) to those widely mocked for getting the election result so stupendously wrong?

I'm not coming down in support of either 'side' here, because I absolutely cannot be bothered, but after the derision of the 'asking the wrong people' excuses rolled out a few weeks back is now the right time for poll results to be used to lord it over others?

Not that I think they're that wrong mind, if at all, it just seems a strange time to point to polls as something definitive.

The general election polls were supposedly inaccurate because of an imbalance in the samples/poor methodology leading to underestimation of Tory support and overestimation of Labour support. This latest poll will either still have the same problem therefore an even bigger Tory lead is likely or been adjusted therefore broadly accurate.

 

[BigGully]

Depends how you define good for the country

Financially or morally?

Putting people into poverty, making a demand of foodbanks, allowing the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer

I'd say that's not great for the country

Stating poverty in the context of this country is silly, its just an arbitrary figure on any person that earns something like 60% of the national average, around £16 500 annual salary and rising deems you poverty stricken.

Low wages has its challenges but it is disfunctionality that remains the scourge of some.

The vagueness of what constitutes poverty or the complexities of those that use foodbanks doesnt tell the whole story, why not clarify your view with what benefits claimants might access, its all in the public domain.

The benefits calculator is here: http://www.entitledto.co.uk/benefits-calculator/startcalc.aspx?e2dwp=y

Give us the figures and we can all make up our minds rather than throwing around meaningless rhetoric about morality, poverty and foodbanks in the UK in 2016.

 

[The Clamp]

Why does any of that make the poll shaky? They had a poll and the Tories came out 27% ahead. Don't you believe the result?

I believe the result, I don't trust the polling process.

 

[jackanada]

why conflate the issue of personal taxation with the egregious use of tax law or government largess towards companies. they aren't the same, one does not happen because of or in spite of the other. if you want to force a link, i can argue that if you remove the state subsidy on wages and you increase wage demands. we could also discuss all the other business and industry that gain from government aid and realise how hypocritical it is to highlight one company.

The conversation had clearly expanded to include in work benefits. You may disagree but the notion that these subsidise employers is not egregious. Pointing out the further benefits companies may receive (disadvantaging smes) possibly so.

 

[jackanada]

I'm sure Conservative voters would be mortified to hear of your disapproval.

You would almost certainly blame them if there was record unemployment perhaps the fact there are record numbers of people in employment could be considered something they've done right. Halving the deficit, overseeing an economy doing better than most of our major competitors, introducing a living wage, EU referendum are some other examples.

Let's be honest even if they had the best record of any government in history you would still not vote for them just because they are Tories.

I am not a tribal voter. You may be. Don't project.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Corbyn could possibly sell his economic and social policies to the electorate.

But he needs to stop being such a GOON about nuclear deterence, leaving NATO, buddying up to terrorists, and being chummy with Putin.

Totally unelectable.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

I am not a tribal voter. You may be. Don't project.

Apologies I only based my opinion on everything you have ever written on matters political.

So you have voted Tory in the past and would be happy to do so in the future?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Anyone still daft enough to believe a single point spread the pollsters report after their collectively pitiful debacle at the General Election? Sake!

The moral minority valuing good over greed is WAY higher percentage-wise than the pollster chancers with their fake self-serving stats suggest.

 

[Javeaseagull]

Labour won a bye election yesterday, not that you would know about it from the press. It doesn't fit the agenda. 52% of the turnout apparently. That's real people turning up to vote not phone calls.

 

[Gullflyinghigh]

The general election polls were supposedly inaccurate because of an imbalance in the samples/poor methodology leading to underestimation of Tory support and overestimation of Labour support. This latest poll will either still have the same problem therefore an even bigger Tory lead is likely or been adjusted therefore broadly accurate.

So would it be feasible for this poll to have overestimated Tory support in an attempt to avoid a similarly laughable cock-up?

I think it's just my own distrust of polls here but I don't understand why this poll (or any poll, regardless of result) should be expected to be any more accurate than the one from the GE (it doesn't actually sound that wrong, but still).

Surely they've all got the potential to be taken from the wrong sample/have a dodgy methodology/be thoroughly lied to by participants?

 

[Albumen]

I'm sure Conservative voters would be mortified to hear of your disapproval.

You would almost certainly blame them if there was record unemployment perhaps the fact there are record numbers of people in employment could be considered something they've done right. Halving the deficit, overseeing an economy doing better than most of our major competitors, introducing a living wage, EU referendum are some other examples.

Let's be honest even if they had the best record of any government in history you would still not vote for them just because they are Tories.

Hehehe that's some imagination you have.
Lets face it they're only in power due to a fairly weak opposition at the last election and the rise of the scotch..