UK General Election 2015

[redarmi]

To be fair they have gone a long way towards abolishing "long term youth unemployment"........they just change the statistical definition of it.

[arbboy]

Some policy that from the tories to win the votes of middle england taking anyone earning under £50k a year out of 40% income tax band (currently stands at £41k) before you pay and £12,500 personal allowance before you pay any income tax from the current £10k.   Massively expensive tax commitments from Cameron.

[DungBeetle]

Surely unaffordable.  I worked the 40% cost out at £5.5 billion on the back of a fag packet. 

4 million paying higher rate, all saving 17% on £8k.  (I've assumed that all higher rate tax payers earn over £50k so maybe chop a billion off for that).

[AndrewT]

It shows how fucked Cameron is - there's no way he was planning on announcing this before April. The UKIP by elections have forced him to unwrap his election campaign presents early.

[DungBeetle]

Absolutely - surely this was the pre election biggie.

Will put clear daylight between Cameron and Miliband though.  Good for politics imo.

Tax break for 45k earners verses Mansion Tax and 50% rate.

[redarmi]

"Trade union for hardworking people"  He could definitely get a job at the Comedy Club if this gig goes tits up.

It is also a smoke and mirrors act.  The tax break for the higher rate taxpayers he only pledged to introduce by the end of the next parliament when he a) is very unlikely to be prime minister and b) even if he is he is unlikely to have a majority to get it through.

[redarmi]

Slightly different note I am not sure that the increase in the tax free personal allowance to 12.5k will cost much if anything.  Minimum wage earners tend to suffer from dissaving so anything that they get extra will likely be spent and pumped back into the economy so it is a good thing to do in terms of economic stimulus and that spending generally generates indirect taxes which you don't get when you increase higher rate tax allowances.  Quite like that.

[arbboy]

These headline bands don't come into affect until 2020 so they will not be as expensive in 2015 as it would appear.  I think it's very misleading tbh saying these figures and in the small print they come into affect in 2020 and not at the start of the next GE.  The personal allowance will be a lot closer to £12,500 anyway in 2020 just from inflationary annual increases so it's nowhere near as big a deal as it first looks.

[arbboy]

One for the lefties!

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/david-camerons-rap-reveals-the-truth-behind-the-tory-party/

[RickBFA]

The UKIP effect is clearly going to be a big factor when voting particularly in marginal seats.

I wonder whether the end result might be better for the Tories than expected - what people say to polling organisations now and what they do in the actually vote may be different.

In the cold light of day if the disillusioned Tories want a vote on Europe, Cameron can play up to that in the run up to the election (whether he delivers a vote is a different issue).

I also think that maybe the UKIP vote from Tory votes may have gone as far as it is going to go. UKIP's attention has been on attracting Tories but I wonder whether Farage will start turning his attention to disillusioned Labour voters too on issues like Europe and immigration. Don't know what the effect would be on projected seats for Labour if UKIP pinched 1-2% of their historical voters?

[TightEnd]

The LD collapse, which looks very likely, is v bad news for the Conservatives hopes of an overall majority. Lots of the unhappy LD vote intends to switch to labour and could swing Lab-Con marginals

Despite that, i still think a hung parliament is the most likely result, and Lib-Lab coalition after that the most likely outcome

[Woodsey]

The LD collapse, which looks very likely, is v bad news for the Conservatives hopes of an overall majority. Lots of the unhappy LD vote intends to switch to labour and could swing Lab-Con marginals

Despite that, i still think a hung parliament is the most likely result, and Lib-Lab coalition after that the most likely outcome

Fks sake!!!

[DungBeetle]

I do think the Tories are in a better position than things appear, primarily due to how unpopular a leader Labour have.

I can't help but think that UKIP voters will get to the voting booth, picture Miliband's face smiling outside Downing Street, and gritt their teeth and vote for Cameron.  In the meantime they'll give it the big one to the polling companies that they are voting for Farage to give Cameron a boot up the backside.

Of course the boundary issue is a huge factor, and whether this is enough to overcome that is open to serious doubt.

Labour/LibDem coalition does look a distinct possibililty primarily due to this factor imo.

[DMorgan]

(NSFWish language)

[TightEnd]

"UKIP divides the Labour party internally. To date, senior Labour figures have been unable to agree whether a UKIP really problem exists and, if it does, how problematic it is likely to prove.

‘Revolt on the Left’ argues that UKIP poses a clear and present danger to Labour’s 2015 hopes and, left unchecked, could threaten to pull apart the party’s historic electoral coalition and challenge it in large swathes of its heartland territory. It incorporates new demographic analysis that, constituency by constituency, measures UKIP’s threat to the two main political parties"

for hard core election nuts:

http://www.fabians.org.uk/publications/revolt-on-the-left-labours-ukip-problem-and-how-it-can-be-overcome/.