UK General Election 2015

[PaintingByNumbers]

For having no chance quite incredibly they are odds on still to get the most seats! Quite incredible how low this country is sinking.  Where are the old fashioned style leaders with balls. I would rather have hezza in charge of the Tories than Cameron. Milliband is just a joke. It's not hard to see why ukip are gaining followers but it's mainly because the big two parties are showing no leadership.

arbboy (or anyone else), can you explain to me why I can only find odds from PaddyPower for 'Prime Minister after the General Election'?
I can see loads of markets being offered, but only the one firm on, surely by far, the most important question to be decided by the Election.

No axe to grind, just interested in the answer.

I assume every other firm thinks the current leaders will still be in charge for the next election so a bet on the election is the same as a bet you are asking for.  That would be the most logical explanation imo.

Isn't it because it covers hung parliament scenarios?

It's hung parliament scenarios I was talking about.
A hung parliament is regarded as fairly likely and this could lead to the largest party on seats not providing the PM (which is how most people would judge 'winning' the GE), but firms don't seem to have priced this up.
Is it just because it's too complicated, or prone to insider information etc?

[AndrewT]

Ladbrokes are offering odds on who is PM at the Queen's Speech (ie formed next government) - is that what you're after?

[PaintingByNumbers]

Ladbrokes are offering odds on who is PM at the Queen's Speech (ie formed next government) - is that what you're after?

Yep, thanks, I actually spotted that (and added an edit) after I made the post.

Didn't mean to sidetrack the thread, it just seemed strange to me after I looked at the odds following one of arbboy's posts.
Especially given there is a strong desire within Labour to go for the '35% strategy', as TightEnd points out, which seems to me to make a hung parliament more likely.

[MintTrav]

George Osborne wants a fairer society. And he's going to get it by cutting benefits.

[RickBFA]

George Osborne wants a fairer society. And he's going to get it by cutting benefits.

Whats the annual benefits bill £160bn a year?

Cutting £3bn is less than 2%.

Its not slashing benefits as the left wing would have you believe.

Our benefits system has got out of control.

We continue to spend more money as a country than we bring in.

That's partly due to the boom in benefit costs we saw under the Labour Government.

Its not sustainable position if we actually want to stop spending more than we earn.

[Longines]

Some good analysis of the numbers here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29416370

The freeze will save 0.9% of the total welfare bill for 2016-18.

[arbboy]

George Osborne wants a fairer society. And he's going to get it by cutting benefits.

I think by a fairer society George means 2 or 3 generations of families shouldn't be paid to sit at home on benefits which are higher than many people who work full time with no intention of working as a lifestyle choice watching Jezza Kyle everyday before they go to spoons for their lunch whilst hard working people pay for their lifestyle.

[Woodsey]

What would people do if there were no benefits handed out? Probably the same as countries where there are no benefits handed out at all.

- Go and live with family until they could get a job to support themselves for the most part
- Get off their arses and find a job, not being able to eat really focuses the mind. Even in very skint countries I've been to people don't go without, their family takes care of them mostly and ensure they eat unless they are in countries with genuine food problems.

I have no problem with benefits for genuine cases, but there are plenty receiving benefits that simply can't be arsed or would not earn a lot more with an actuall job v being on benefits hence they can't be arsed.

I see loads of min wage jobs advertised around Nottingham all the time, anyone that REALLY wants a job will mostly get one imo unless they are a total fuckwit or simply can't be arsed.














In before lefty tossers want to tax all us workers to fuck to support lthe lazy fuckwits  

[DMorgan]

Agree that abolishing the benefits system altogether would indeed force a lot of the people that could work if push came to shove, into work.

On the other side of the coin, do you want to live in a society where if someone loses their job they are instantly on the bread line? Where families can't enjoy any extra money that they have earned because they are only ever one illness in the family, one accident or one child being born with a condition/disability that requires complex treatment away from the bread line?

Such is the danger of sensationalised stories about benefit scroungers. Its pretty tragic that the country is up in arms about the very few that slip through the net when the welfare state is there to help those that can't help themselves. Just like any system that is set up to help people, you're going to get some that will take the piss and exploit that good nature, but does that outweigh the millions of people that would be struggling without that extra help? 82% of benefit payments in 2012 went to working households. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

The whole shape of the debate on social welfare is wrong imo. At the moment the debate is polarised between people that work and pay in (however the method, I don't want to drag the gamblers paying tax debate into this thread) wanting to be able to call all the shots on where the money goes; and those that aren't presently in work. Unless the person out of work has an obvious disability/health issue they tend to be tarred with the scrounger brush. It is billed in various publications as the career workers vs the career claimants when this really isn't what is going on. The situation is much more liquid than that. The system is in place for when something bad happens to you and you can't support yourself any more. Between 2008 and 2013, one in seven people were made redundant at some point. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9881215/One-in-seven-workers-made-redundant-since-recession.html

I think that most of the members of team 'I pay for it' have a somewhat static view of the world and are comfortable assuming that their relatively strong financial position will endure. In reality, the rug can be pulled from under your feet really quite easily and you don't know what you've got 'till its gone.

To finish, a poem

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

[redarmi]

What would people do if there were no benefits handed out? Probably the same as countries where there are no benefits handed out at all.

- Go and live with family until they could get a job to support themselves for the most part
- Get off their arses and find a job, not being able to eat really focuses the mind. Even in very skint countries I've been to people don't go without, their family takes care of them mostly and ensure they eat unless they are in countries with genuine food problems.

I have no problem with benefits for genuine cases, but there are plenty receiving benefits that simply can't be arsed or would not earn a lot more with an actuall job v being on benefits hence they can't be arsed.

I see loads of min wage jobs advertised around Nottingham all the time, anyone that REALLY wants a job will mostly get one imo unless they are a total fuckwit or simply can't be arsed.



In before lefty tossers want to tax all us workers to fuck to support lthe lazy fuckwits  

Lefty tosser reporting for duty......

Actually have no problem with people being made to work for their benefits but I would take issue with what you say about what happens in poor country where there are no benefits.  In my experience in the Caribbean it increases the levels of crime and makes for a much more dangerous place.  In Jamaica in particular there is a huge divide in society and there are a lot of places where normal working people would be afraid to go for fear of being robbed.

[DungBeetle]

I'm quite partial to a bit of benefits bashing (I especially like to rage when some idiot council houses a family of benefits claimants in a £2 million London property).   However,  if we are being honest by far the biggest problem with the welfare bill is the state pension.   Not sure what the solution is though.  Reducing it is political suicide!

The proposals by Osbourne just tinker round the edges if he leaves the pension unreformed.

[doubleup]

The proposals by Osbourne just tinker round the edges if he leaves the pension unreformed.

You mean apart from increasing retirement age, introducing the flat rate, scrapping SP2and increasing NI payments, changing public sector schemes to average salary/increasing contributions?

[TightEnd]

the UK (and all developed economies) have a pensions problem borne of the ageing population as the babyboomers reach retirement

this is only going to get worse

the things Osborne is announcing are a drop in the ocean to the sort of moves that need to happen but cannot do so politically

[AndrewT]

the things Osborne is announcing are a drop in the ocean to the sort of moves that need to happen but cannot do so politically

   

[david3103]

I am not, nor ever have been, a contributor to any political party...

But George Osborne appears to labour under the illusion that I could be.


Conservatives
David,

Today I delivered my speech to the Conservative Party Conference - and I asked Britain to choose the future, not the past.

Four years ago, our economy and our country were on the floor. But we picked ourselves up, sorted ourselves out and got back in the fight.

In Government, we set out our long-term economic plan and worked through it.

Today, Britain is the fastest growing, most job-creating, most deficit-reducing of any major advanced economy.

We did this together.

And David - we need you to help us finish the job by donating £20 today.

Because there is more to do.

That is why I set out our plans to help build a better future:

People who have worked and saved all their lives will be able to pass on their hard-earned pensions to their families tax free. I'm abolishing the punitive 55% death tax altogether.
The Conservatives will take the difficult decisions to carry on getting the deficit down. So we will freeze benefits for two years from April 2016.
We want to see low business taxes, but low taxes that are paid - not avoided. We'll put a stop to technology multinationals diverting profits offshore to avoid tax.
We will abolish long-term youth unemployment so that we give young people the opportunity of a better, more secure future. Reducing the benefit cap will fund 3 million apprenticeships.
We'll help young first-time buyers get their starter home with a permanent Help to Buy.
The election will be a simple choice.

And we say: don't let us go back to the failures of the past. But choose to look ahead to a brighter future.

David - you can help secure this future for Britain by making a donation today:

Donate 20 pounds today

Thanks,


George Osborne
Chancellor of the Exchequer

So many issues here, but I do have one specific question.
If it is possible to 'abolish long-term youth unemployment', surely it's also possible to abolish crime, social injustice, the common cold and people telling endless bad beat stories?