2015 Elections : Who is voting for who and why ?

[Tumble]

The thought of UKIP getting control is a frightening one, so not them. Haven't seen anything locally yet from Labour or the Lib Dems so I can't say about that lot. Just had a flyer through the door from the Conservatives & the Greens. Green chap looks (and sounds) like a twerp, and the Conservative offering looks like she is not accustomed to smiling. At all. Ever...

They're all going to be as bad as the next lot though, doesn't really matter who gets in (if any of them). The only thing that does really matter in all this, is that Farage, hideous rubber faced troll that he is and his cronies don't get elected... that would be DISASTROUS.

[Zak33]

I agree Tumble.. and what worries me... is that people I have lots of respect for, intellectually.. have decided to vote for him as a protest vote.

that worries me

[Saracen]

..... All I really wanted to know was whether you believed that, over the course of the last 5 Years, the burden had been shared equally.

And I think I gave you the best answer that I can. Which is that it depends what you mean by "shared equally".

One definition, hopelessly irrelevant, would be by an equal amount of money. But I'm absolutely sure you'd agree that that, while "equal" would struggle to meet any sensible definition of fair.

So what would?

Equal proportion of disposable income? That fails to take account of differing standards of living, for a start. If your foodstuff includes a BigMac and Coke and mine includes Beluga caviar (which it wouldn't, by the way, as I don't like it much) and Dom Perignon (which I don't drink). So, even if uou settle on disposable income versus net income, it dossn't account foe the better off having assets, capital, investments, and the poor .... don't.

Whar I actually disagreed with was the notion that Tory policy "made sure" that the rich get richer. In fact, the rich get richer because after a point, it's rather hard for them, short of incompetence, not to.

It's a fact of life that if you've got money in serious quantities, it creates money in significant quantities, unless you're an idiot. And, even with gross excesses (like the Beluga), there's limits to what we need to spend on the essentials, and for the wealthy, such costs are trivial.

The rich got richer under Labour too, and if you remember, they were 'intensely relaxed" about the filthy rich. The rich get richer because they have to work quite hard not to. And the poor struggle, always have and unless there's an upheaval in our fundamentals of an order big enough to render money and possessions irrelevant, always will.

Though, the "poor" in the UK ought to take a look at definitions of poor in much of Africa, Indua, China and many other places, or at poor in the UK 100 years ago, before moaning too mych. It's a VERY relative term.

From the way you phrased it in your last post, U get the imoression you think you know my voting preferences. If so, please tell me, because as I said at the start of this thread, I'm utterly undecided, and I'm undecided whether to vote, never mind for who. So I'd be grateful to know who I'm voting for. It'll save me fretting about it.

I do, however, have some clear ideas about who I won't vote for.

I also have a theory about why the SNP appear to be trouncing Labour, at least, according to polls.

It seems to me that the SNP are presenting a pretty clear direction of travel, a clear vision. It's not one that, personally, I like, but it's clear. First, Scottish independence. Second, a firmly left wing agenda.

I might also argue that UKIP success comes down to much the same .... in that it's a clear vision.

In both cases, it's a vision that lots of people reject, but nevertheless, it's clear. And, ckearly differentiates them. Most people seem to either love or hate both parties, but they know what they're about.

But with either Tory or Labour, it's nowhere near so clear, and if I, as something of a political anorak, am both confused and alienated by both, it doesn't bode well for people that aren't inherently interested. It does explain the persistent stickiness of the polls.

I mean,

Tory - eliminate deficit, cut faster
Labour - eliminate deficit a bit slower, cut a bit less.

NEITHER will actually answer sensible questions on quite what, how or by how much.

BOTH expect to be able to drop a hint or two, and think we'll buy a pig in a poke and cheerfully give them well-paid jobs running our lives for 5 years. Well, I for one find it .... offensive. Disrespectful. Condescending. they want our vote, but won't do us the courtesy of levelling with us. Unlike last time when the Tories told us it was going to be hard, painful, but necessary, and tgat it was going to take years not months, to turn the economy round. And it has.

Look at what I said back then and I said it was going to take longer than even the Tories were admitting, that it was a good 10 years, if not two or three decades. And, so far, events back my expectations. The country has done better than I expected, but still, we have a LONG way to go.

[HalloweenJack]

if labour lose Scotland , would they support a change to the west Lothian question??

[HalloweenJack]

I agree Tumble.. and what worries me... is that people I have lots of respect for, intellectually.. have decided to vote for him as a protest vote.

that worries me

and you would prefer a left wing SNP `forced` labour administration??

[kalniel]

But with either Tory or Labour, it's nowhere near so clear, and if I, as something of a political anorak, am both confused and alienated by both, it doesn't bode well for people that aren't inherently interested. It does explain the persistent stickiness of the polls.

I mean,

Tory - eliminate deficit, cut faster
Labour - eliminate deficit a bit slower, cut a bit less.

NEITHER will actually answer sensible questions on quite what, how or by how much.

BOTH expect to be able to drop a hint or two, and think we'll buy a pig in a poke and cheerfully give them well-paid jobs running our lives for 5 years. Well, I for one find it .... offensive. Disrespectful. Condescending. they want our vote, but won't do us the courtesy of levelling with us. Unlike last time when the Tories told us it was going to be hard, painful, but necessary, and tgat it was going to take years not months, to turn the economy round. And it has.

Look at what I said back then and I said it was going to take longer than even the Tories were admitting, that it was a good 10 years, if not two or three decades. And, so far, events back my expectations. The country has done better than I expected, but still, we have a LONG way to go.

I think a lot of commentators are making the same point, even the IMF. All the parties have done enough research to know what topics not to talk about in detail in order not to alienate someone, and the result is this horrible vagueness. As you say, we have the choice of end points (cuts rate: SNP < Labour < LibDem < Tory) which just aligns with party direction and no detail about how they're going to implement. Apparently the LibDems have given the most detail, but they include some figures which are the most dubious as well!

[TheAnimus]

You talk about the cuts rate, but the SNP are still going to be quite cut happy...

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7725

[kalniel]

You talk about the cuts rate, but the SNP are still going to be quite cut happy...

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7725

From the same document:

Tories 5.2% cut by 2018/9
LibDem 3.9% by 2017/8
Labour 3.6% by 2018/9
SNP 3.6% but by 2019/20

SNPs is the joint least and also the slowest cutting.

Of course, language is important - a lot of people use 'cut' to imply a negative thing, and 'austerity' or budgeting etc. to imply a positive. I pass no comment here about whether the changes are positive or negative, just the relative positions of the parties which are pretty much exactly where you'd expect.

[opel80uk]

And I think I gave you the best answer that I can. Which is that it depends what you mean by "shared equally".

Well, what I definitely don't understand shared equally, or all being in it together, to mean is the rich getting richer while diabetic former soldiers are found dead with a few teabags, a tin of sardines and 3 pounds, after having his benefits sanctioned (although I accept your point that it could have been worse for him in relation to the poor elsewhere – he did have a tin of sardines after all). Shared equally means to me, at the very least, the number of people having to rely on food banks just to feed themselves not going up from 60k in 2010 to over a million in 2015 – that's my bottom line for what I understand shared equally to mean, that not happening. Now you, or the politicians, can give lots of different statistics looking at income distribution to total receipts, all to support the notion that burden has been shared equally, but while the number of people who are literally going hungry in 21st Century Britain increases exponentially, those figures mean absolutely nothing to me. So I stand by my comment that the Conservatives have made sure that the rich have got richer, if only by their inaction, as I can see no other way at looking at that happening while the number of people going without food goes up. That you disagree with that doesn't bother, nor surprise me, but to simply state that it isn't true is rather myopic.

And I appreciate that I will no doubt be called to task for making an emotive point, as if they are somehow of less value, but I simply don't know how to look at the above figures and just see numbers.

So in short It's not for me to decide what 'shared equally means' to you. I just asked whether what has happened has met your understanding of what was meant.

From the way you phrased it in your last post, U get the imoression you think you know my voting preferences. If so, please tell me, because as I said at the start of this thread, I'm utterly undecided, and I'm undecided whether to vote, never mind for who. So I'd be grateful to know who I'm voting for. It'll save me fretting about it.

I don't think I said anything in my last post that implied that I thought I knew your voting preference. All I said was, of the 2 parties being mentioned, in this case Labour and Conservative, I detected a preference for Conservatives. Is that unfair, or untrue? Whether you would vote Conservatives or not is another matter and not something I could know.

[TheAnimus]

SNPs is the joint least and also the slowest cutting.

If you look at Figures 4.1 and 4.2, you will see that it's slightly behind Labour and Lib Dem.

It really, as always, depends what you mean by cutting. I worry that people have been selling the SNP as less of a concern for non-scots by suggesting that they are better than Labour, to try and win over the lefter side of labour's voters ahead of a potential hung parliament.

So in some ways they might cut less, in other ways they might cut more. As always it depends where you are looking!

It's academic anyway for me, as I'm pro-union, and think that having minority party issues will damage the majority of people, we will see a wealth transfer away from deprived parts such as the north of England, in favour of better subsidising Scotland, more so, if the current Saudi puts continue. I really dislike the idea of an SNP increase, as we've still got the issue of the west loathian question, which I worry will get worse, then I also start thinking, why stop there with borders, why not let Cornwall run off, why not the South East. That would **** over the rest of the country very badly.

[The Hand]

What bothers me, is a possible coalition that involves the Greens... Not for their environmental concerns, but for their borderline communist economic policies and their incredibly naive approach to ISIS and Al-qaeda, in that they would allow membership of these terrorist groups in the UK.

[Saracen]

....

I don't think I said anything in my last post that implied that I thought I knew your voting preference. All I said was, of the 2 parties being mentioned, in this case Labour and Conservative, I detected a preference for Conservatives. Is that unfair, or untrue? Whether you would vote Conservatives or not is another matter and not something I could know.

To clarify that point, I said I thought you "thought" you knew my voting preference, by which I mean basic tendency, a starting point, if you like, not what I voted, which clearly, you couldn't know. Well, not without my actual identity and detailed access to voting records and ballot papers ... with which, of course, our supposedly secret ballot isn't.

The reason I said that is ... [

Perhaps, but it is what I asked you. And in fact this actually stemmed from me saying that the Tories have ensured the richest have got richer whilst telling us that that we're all in it together, to which you said it wasn't true. Presumably that is what you, personally, think.

....

I took that to mean you thought, or think, that I agree with the Tory propaganda on this. If that wasn't what you meant, then fair enough, but it's the inference I took from that. My actual idealogjcal positioning is, in facy, a bit more nuanced than that, which is one readon I'm having a hard time deciding who to vote for. The other major reason is that I don't feel, or believe, ANY credible contender whee I am is being straight with us. The IFS seems to concur. Bigtime.

[opel80uk]

To clarify that point, I said I thought you "thought" hou knew my voting preference, by which I mean basic tendency, a starting point, if you like, not what I voted, which clearly, you couldn't know. Well, not without my actual identity and detailed access to voting records and ballot papers ... with which, of course, our supposedly secret ballot isn't.

The reason I said that is ... [I took that to mean you thought, or think, that I agree with the Tory propaganda on this. If that wasn't what you meant, then fair enough, but it's the inference I took from that. My actual idealogjcal positioning is, in facy, a bit more nuanced than that, which is one readon I'm having a hard time deciding who to vote for. The other major reason is that I don't feel, or believe, ANY credible contender whee I am is being straight with us. The IFS seems to concur. Bigtime.

No, I don't think I know your general voting preference. I was really saying that, in relation to topics that had been brought up on this thread, or more specifically the economy, there appears (as I read it at least) a certain degree of sympathy from you for the Conservative position, but I was really referring only on that in particular. My choice of using 'preference' was probably a bit unfortunate to be fair.

And no, I didn't think you had said it wasn't true based on what the Tories have said, but rather what you yourself think, but again I can see how I phrased it may have led to the inference. I am saying that I believe the Tories have intentionally, by inertion or otherwise, made sure that the rich have got richer during this period. You said that was untrue, which I think is myopic.

[Saracen]

Well, what I definitely don't understand shared equally, or all being in it together, to mean is the rich getting richer while diabetic former soldiers are found dead with a few teabags, a tin of sardines and 3 pounds, after having his benefits sanctioned (although I accept your point that it could have been worse for him in relation to the poor elsewhere – he did have a tin of sardines after all). Shared equally means to me, at the very least, the number of people having to rely on food banks just to feed themselves not going up from 60k in 2010 to over a million in 2015 – that's my bottom line for what I understand shared equally to mean, that not happening. Now you, or the politicians, can give lots of different statistics looking at income distribution to total receipts, all to support the notion that burden has been shared equally, but while the number of people who are literally going hungry in 21st Century Britain increases exponentially, those figures mean absolutely nothing to me. So I stand by my comment that the Conservatives have made sure that the rich have got richer, if only by their inaction, as I can see no other way at looking at that happening while the number of people going without food goes up. That you disagree with that doesn't bother, nor surprise me, but to simply state that it isn't true is rather myopic.

And I appreciate that I will no doubt be called to task for making an emotive point, as if they are somehow of less value, but I simply don't know how to look at the above figures and just see numbers.

So in short It's not for me to decide what 'shared equally means' to you. I just asked whether what has happened has met your understanding of what was meant.





I don't think I said anything in my last post that implied that I thought I knew your voting preference. All I said was, of the 2 parties being mentioned, in this case Labour and Conservative, I detected a preference for Conservatives. Is that unfair, or untrue? Whether you would vote Conservatives or not is another matter and not something I could know.

Well, how about this.

We're coming at this very differently. Perhaps, due to differing backgrounds. Mine is economics degree, and one with a heavy emphasis on maths, econometrics, etc, rather than the politics or historical emphasis most politicians with degrees involving economics (like PPE) seem to have. Then, icing on the cake if you like, I trained as a chartered accountant, though I then took an entirely different career path.

Nonetheless, my basic mindset is that sort of analytical approach. Several years back, I condidered buying a breadmaker. Then did. But I wanted to know if it made financial sense. So, I built a series of spreadsheets, breaking down the cost of each of my main loaf recipes accounting for the cost right down to the per gram cost of yeast, and the actual consumption of electricity, and the resultant cost. It came out at between 31p and 67p per loaf, by the way, depending on which loaf.

So .... from what you say above, and my your own admission, your approach is more emotional. Take your comments on food banks, for instance. You take that, it seems, as face-value evidence of increasing poverty. I don't necessarily accept that. It might simply be a combination of increasing availability and increasing publicity. I would want to drill down behind headline figures, before drawing conclysions as to what they mean. For instance, I've heard claims that prior to 2010, the Labour administration would not allow job centres to publicise these, and the coalition reversed that. If true, then if you present people living jnder very tight finances with a way to ease that, many will take it. If MANY more becone aware the option exists, take-up rates will jump, and the increased demand will fuel the growth in availability.

So, it seems, you take the emotional route and make assumptions about what it means, and want to determine policy accordingly. I take a much more hard-headed approach, and I regard food bank numbers as a symptom and want to analyse the cause before stepping to policy.

And this, I suspect, is behind our different perspectives on "in it equally". Your reaction is more emotional outrage, mine is to want to know precisely how you defjne "equally" before giving a view on whether we are or not.

It is, for instance, blindingly self-evident that billionaires, or even millionaires, aren't in it to the point that many attend food banks. So no, by that measure, it's not "equal". Billionaires are less "in it" than job-seekers. But short of confiscating ALL property, from EVERYONE, and divvying it up pro-rata, that sort of equality us a ludicrous pipe-dream. And, by the way, any attempt to do so wouldn't just alienate the very rich, but the vast majority of the middle classes, too.

But food bank attendance isn't the only way we can all be "in it together". Another would be on how much tax we pay. For us to be "equally" in it, in terms of tax paid, we'd all have to pay the same. So, either the vast majority are going to see large tax bill rises, or the filthy rich paying millions in tax are going to get a tax cut of millions to bring them down to the amount we could ALL pay equally.

I doubt you'd back that, and I certainly wouldn't.

If you, or anyone else, can come up with a way to make the very wealthy pay more in tax to contribute to lessening the pain either of welfare, or austerity, THAT WORKS, I'm for it. But for any such policy to be intelligent, it MUST take account of behavioural impacts, because changes in tax rates, or rather, impact of tax burden can and does have a behavioural impact, and the larger the change in impact, the larger the behavioural change.

This, by the way, is another challenge for "equality" - the ability to change one's personal circumstances depends in large part on wealth. The poor have little or no ability make a behavioral change that affects tax jurisdiction. The middle classes and middle affluent can, but ir's far more difficult. The filthy rich can do it, if need be, in hours. And there's naff-all point in making an emotional decision to bleed the rich if the actual impact is that they up-sticks and beggar-off, resulting in lower tax contributions, making things even harder on the rest of us than it already was.

So, by some definiions, the wealthy are making far more than equal contributions, by others far less than equal. Any sensible policy has to consider not just an emotional claim to some amorphous 'fairness' but a pragmatic approach to what will actually work, actually help, not just make us feel better by punishing those we see as having more than us .... hence my politics of envy criticism of Labour spin. About half their campaign has been based on this, be it attacks on "toffs", or banker's bonuses, or wealth taxes. It's a naked emotional appeal, often lacking in pragmatism, just like Brown's ludicous assertions of "Iron Chancellor" and abolishing boom and bust.

[Saracen]

No, I don't think I know your general voting preference. I was really saying that, in relation to topics that had been brought up on this thread, or more specifically the economy, there appears (as I read it at least) a certain degree of sympathy from you for the Conservative position, but I was really referring only on that in particular. My choice of using 'preference' was probably a bit unfortunate to be fair.

And no, I didn't think you had said it wasn't true based on what the Tories have said, but rather what you yourself think, but again I can see how I phrased it may have led to the inference. I am saying that I believe the Tories have intentionally, by inertion or otherwise, made sure that the rich have got richer during this period. You said that was untrue, which I think is myopic.

I'm far from sympathetic to the Tory position, but it's true I'm pretty contemptuous of the Labour one. Or most of it, anyway.

I agree with some LD positions, but utterly reject others. I agree with some Labour, some Tory and some UKIP policies, but not all, for any. I think the Green party are myopic, naive, idealist and dangerous idiots. I couldn't vote for Plaid, SNP etc if I wanted to which, broadly, I don't.

Unless the party offerings change, I'm either going to have to not vote, or try to pick a subset of my main issues, and either do a best-match to a party to support, or a tactical vote to keep out someone I really reject.

Round here, it's pretty much a Labour/Tory marginal, which is why my focus is largely on those two.

[mjallan123]

Well I have voted SNP the last couple of elections and was probably going to vote for them again (I'm strongly against independence by the way).

However, taking the WSIVF quiz, I'm apparantly -19 for SNP lol! +36 for Labour!