in Henley. Now fair enough, tactical voting means that people would vote Liberal Democrat or green to keep the Tories out. But nonetheless it shows how Labour's core vote has been trashed by the current mob, even Labour members are not voting labour anymore.

I'm listening to new Labour lickspittle Ben Bradshaw half-heartedly go through his talking points. "It's not that big a deal - it's a true blue Tory seat."

Beaten by the BNP. It's a fucking disaster

Brilliant!

I had £40 at 8-1 Labour would be in 5th place.

I heart politicalbetting.com

Ok newby, you've filled out your profile seemingly fully. But there's one glaring omission. Favourite biscuit. Don't think you can slip under the radar that easily.

I'll let you off, this one time, as an act of faux Lincolnshire solidarity. But I want it amended by the end of the day, otherwise sanctions will be put in place.

Bad night for the Daily Star, as well, whose "Birds for Britain" candidate (or whatever she was called) appears to have lost out to even Labour, despite all the campaigning this week by their page 3 lovelies. British democracy's brilliant, isn't it?

Last time Conservative finished fifth in a by-election:

Down North, June 1995

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

UK Unionist Bob McCartney 10,124 37.0 N/A
Ulster Unionist Alan McFarland 7,232 26.4 N/A
Alliance Oliver Napier 6,970 25.4 +10.7
Independent Unionist Alan Chambers 2,170 7.9 N/A
Conservative Stuart Sexton 583 2.1 -29.9
Free Para Lee Clegg Now Michael Brooks 108 0.4 N/A
Independent Voice Christopher Carter 101 0.4 N/A
Natural Law James Anderson 100 0.4 -0.2

Majority 2,892

Turnout 38.6

A hundred overs, 0.4 maidens and -0.2 of a wicket must be Jimmy Anderson's worst ever analysis.

It's a good headline, but the real disaster for Labour is that the Lib Dems vote switching to the Tories.

If David Cameron can capture the non-radical centre, as he appears to be doing, then a lot of Labour seats will fall in addition to those lost in a straight Tory/Labour fight.

A Cameron landslide is on the cards.

Given Labour's policies, will anyone actually notice the difference?

I think so. You can't really criticise Brown for his record on employment and the use of tax credits, etc. to keep people in work. This is the sort of stuff that a triumphalist Tory party could scrap under the guise of 'red tape', 'supporting small business' and other tory appeals to the small minded.

Cameron has a balancing act, appealling to the mundane centre, but relying on the swathes of small-minded, proto-racist, tax-begrudging arseholes who support the Tories in the clear expectation of getting lower taxes in return for someone else getting less services.

Blair craved the votes of these people and throwed little carrots at them, whilst Brown got on with the business of increasing employment and disincentives to work.

The death of Mondeo Man and the birth of Discovery Man.

QUOTE:
You can't really criticise Brown for his record on employment and the use of tax credits, etc. to keep people in work. This is the sort of stuff that a triumphalist Tory party could scrap under the guise of 'red tape', 'supporting small business' and other tory appeals to the small minded.

You could criticise if you are a married couple, because he scrapped the married couples tax allowance. Cannot be seen to be favouring the idea of a "normal" family life.

In the old days, government offices decided how much benefits each person got. Under the tax credit system, its companies finance departments that have to do it. Acting like quasi-benefits offices. This is a massive increase in red-tape for companies, especially small ones who only employ a few staff.

Moving millions of people from "Job Seekers" to "On the sick" does not count as increasing employment.

QUOTE:
swathes of small-minded, proto-racist, tax-begrudging arseholes who support the Tories in the clear expectation of getting lower taxes in return for someone else getting less services.

The other big issue with Brown and employment was his decision to scrap the 10p rate and reduce the basic rate from 22% to 20%. This policy has reduced the tax take on the so-called "tax-begrudging arseholes", and increased taxes and caused hardship for the very people that tax credits were supposed to be helping. (Want Tory, vote Labour). It's Labours grass roots, who are most likely to be the ones that now hate the government, for doubling their starting tax rate, and causing them verifiable financial pain. This policy has also made being on benefits more attractive than before. It is definately a case of shooting himself in the foot.

For someone to paint a rosy picture of one of the least popular (current polls) goverments in history is quite startling. Maybe it is not the politicians which are out of touch!

woah, woah, woah

I was quite careful about what I said. Employment is up, a lot. I am not talking about massaging unemployment figures.

I think scrapping the married couples allowance was a sensible thing to do. Particularly as he switched the money into child benefit. Giving tax breaks to Dinkys who are generally better off than anyone else was ridiculous.

Ah yes, the red tape argument rears its head. Finance departments have alwasy had to do complex payroll calculations, nowadays it is a bit more complicated because the people the companies chose to employ are entitled to tax credits. Now it might be 'red tape' to some, but anyone with a broader vision couls see that

1. Better to have the extra work in order to employ that person or else that person would be at home, signing on and not available for the company to employ. Would companies willingly swap for a less able employee in order to avoid this?

2. Most companies can see that the extra money the employee gets saves them money. It costs slightly less to employ someone on tax credits or you get a better person for the money as the government supplements their salary. Simple supply and demand.

3. The removal of the 10% rate that he introduced was indeed a disaster.

It's not a rosy picture. It's a realistic one and people who think the Tories won't be any worse have very short memories.

Thatcher got elected on a moderate programme: grocer's daughter, cut out waste, stop the unions holding us to ransom: ie typical small-minded Toryism.

Now Cameron is no Thatcher, but (a) he will say anything to get elected and so(b) we really don't know who he is. He is already beginning to shift to the right as his position gets stronger. So who knows, but don't be complacent.

The real problem is small companies. Ones that employ 1,2,3 staff. These small companies really struggle with red-tape. If these companies have to hire a tax-specialist to sort this, then thats a massive reduction in their balance sheets. This may mean not being able to employ more staff, or in the worst case having to lay one off. Reducing "productive" staff numbers to replace them with desk-jockeys is never good. The more red-tape you have the harder it is for companies to grow. For a company like ICI or somesuch it's not such a big deal, but its still one less scientist on the factory floor.

ps I don't think people who work in finance departments would struggle for work if tax credits were removed. Especially if they are qualified accountants or book-keepers.

I'm not sure why scrapping the married couples allowance was a sensible thing. The whole point of marriage is to be an environment to have children. So by doing this they were taking money off the very people who were having children.

QUOTE:
Giving tax breaks to Dinkys

This is wrong. The allowance was designed to help couples who wanted one parent to stay at home to look after "the baby". If both parents worked then the allowance did not apply. The whole point of it, was that it was a transferable tax allowance, not an actual benefit.

To replace this outcome the government has spent billions on nurseries, its had to bring in massively long maternal leave.

Is this any better. Wether or not putting kids in nurseries is beneficial to society is an interesting question.

QUOTE:
2. Most companies can see that the extra money the employee gets saves them money. It costs slightly less to employ someone on tax credits or you get a better person for the money as the government supplements their salary. Simple supply and demand.

You cannot pay someone less, just because they receive benefits. That would be discriminatory. I think you are getting tax credits and the YTS or whatever its called now (modern apprenticeship?) mixed up.

This is getting confusing

harbinger of hope wrote:

QUOTE:

ps I don't think people who work in finance departments would struggle for work if tax credits were removed. Especially if they are qualified accountants or book-keepers.

I meant that the company would employ better people in any function because the tax credit system encourages them to work , rather than having an incentive to sign on.

QUOTE:

I'm not sure why scrapping the married couples allowance was a sensible thing. The whole point of marriage is to be an environment to have children. So by doing this they were taking money off the very people who were having children.

The benefit was transferred directly onto children's benefit. So it targetted people with children, whether married or not or whether single or not. This is much more effective than indirect targetting of the married couple's allowance.

QUOTE:
Giving tax breaks to Dinkys

This is wrong. The allowance was designed to help couples who wanted one parent to stay at home to look after "the baby". If both parents worked then the allowance did not apply. The whole point of it, was that it was a transferable tax allowance, not an actual benefit.

Apologies for getting that wrong

I don't understand your nursery point.

QUOTE:

You cannot pay someone less, just because they receive benefits. That would be discriminatory. I think you are getting tax credits and the YTS or whatever its called now (modern apprenticeship?) mixed up.

No, this is not what I meant. If the take home pay without tax credits is £1000 per month to A and £1,100 a month to B with tax credits then the job is worth more to B. Which means that the company can attract B who would otherwise be looking for a higher paid job to earn £1,100.

Question: Would Labour would have fallen this far in the polls if Blair were still around?

To put it another way, is this the inevitable result of ten years of New Labour, or has GB fucked this up in some special way?

I think it's the economy more than anything else. People feel the pinch in their pocket and blame the Government of the day.

And with the possibility of public sector strikes over pay, the commentators have been warming up the New Winter of Discontent headlines in readiness.

And is Brown really a politician in the modern sense of the word? Blair, for all his faults, had the ability to at least seem like he was saying something worthwhile even if he was selling you snake oil. Yes, it was tiresome at times but it has been about how you look and present stuff - see the Nixon vs Kennedy debates for the difference between