UK General Election 2015

[The Baron]

It's been a great thread and the minority views of the left have been presented well. However fact is the Tories secured an outright majority victory! Sour grapes from the minority left aimed at people who voted for a majority conservative government is cringeworthy. British people have spoken. They trust the Tories to deliver on the issues that matter. Five years majority conservative government!!

Think you will find English people spoke.  There is a massive difference. 

Think you will find the south of England, not including London, spoke.

[The Baron]

Tax evasion facts

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-by-hmrc-on-tax-evasion-and-the-hsbc-suisse-data-leak

The government has strongly supported HMRC’s approach to tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance by increasing investment in HMRC’s enforcement capacity, and by strengthening HMRC’s powers.

The government has invested around £1 billion in HMRC’s compliance activities since 2010, and has made 42 changes to tax laws to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion.

....

We have also increased criminal prosecutions five-fold, and between 2010 and 2014 HMRC secured more than 2,650 criminal prosecutions and 2,718 years of prison sentences for tax crimes.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/prosecuting_tax_evasion/

Firstly, it seems to have been the last Labour government that initiated the crackdown

in April 2010 the Crown Prosecution Service and the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office joined forces.  An expert team from RCPO combined with an expert team from the CPS to form a new Central Fraud Division within the CPS

The coalition did fund it, though it isn't clear whether that was extra money or the money Labour planned to spend, I don't know.

It seems that the crackdown is directed at frauds such as vat carousel frauds and tobacco and alcohol smuggling.  The man in the street wants to see prosecutions for income tax and corporation tax evasion - do you have any evidence that those rose in the last five years?

I have produced some fairly conclusive evidence that it is wrong to say the Tories are soft on tax evasion.  Read the site, inland revenue resources aimed at tax evasion have increased very significantly.  

Why don't you produce some evidence yourself that I am wrong?   It is fairly easy to find previous prosecutions using Google for instance.

You can blame them for lots of things but not this.

I'm sorry but I'm going to be skeptical about a press release coming from a government department that is under fire for not prosecuting income tax evaders with HSBC accounts in Switzerland.

As I pointed out the prosecution figures mostly seem to be large scale frauds and from your link:

collected £135 million in tax, interest and penalties from people on the HSBC Suisse list

secured £852 million from the UK’s 6,000 richest people

These people do not appear to have been prosecuted, in contrast to the thousands that are prosecuted for benefit fraud.

It says in link why their have been no prosecutions in the HSBC cases, the general reason being because they have to work within the law.

Benefit fraud is legally many times more straightforward and easy to prove.

Funny that.

[TightEnd]

It's been a great thread and the minority views of the left have been presented well. However fact is the Tories secured an outright majority victory! Sour grapes from the minority left aimed at people who voted for a majority conservative government is cringeworthy. British people have spoken. They trust the Tories to deliver on the issues that matter. Five years majority conservative government!!

Think you will find English people spoke.  There is a massive difference. 

Think you will find the south of England, not including London, spoke.

that is just lazy

loads of midlands marginals, seats in lancashire, yorkshire, stockton south in the north east. five seats in wales,scottish borders (400 votes off a second seat), sweep of the south west

certainly London (more multi-cultural, anti UKIP) performed much better for Labour but not a lot of progress in places like Battersea. meanwhile twickenham, kingston, sutton etc all went Tory

only in 2020 (when no doubt there will be a different set of issues to the fore) will we see how much of England sticking with conservative was a "fear" vote or not. i suspect it probably was.

[Woodsey]

Good last few pages, can't beat a bit of sour grapes 

[The Baron]

It's been a great thread and the minority views of the left have been presented well. However fact is the Tories secured an outright majority victory! Sour grapes from the minority left aimed at people who voted for a majority conservative government is cringeworthy. British people have spoken. They trust the Tories to deliver on the issues that matter. Five years majority conservative government!!

Think you will find English people spoke.  There is a massive difference. 

Think you will find the south of England, not including London, spoke.

that is just lazy

loads of midlands marginals, seats in lancashire, yorkshire, stockton south in the north east. five seats in wales,scottish borders (400 votes off a second seat), sweep of the south west

certainly London (more multi-cultural, anti UKIP) performed much better for Labour but not a lot of progress in places like Battersea. meanwhile twickenham, kingston, sutton etc all went Tory

only in 2020 (when no doubt there will be a different set of issues to the fore) will we see how much of England sticking with conservative was a "fear" vote or not. i suspect it probably was.

Ofc, was just adding to the generalisation.

Agree with your last line also.

[Woodsey]

Seems about right.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/im-a-proud-tory-but-with-the-left-this-belligerent-and-selfrighteous-is-it-any-wonder-that-so-many-of-us-are-shy-10236544.html

[BigAdz]

The really ironic thing is the Tories winning is that it's almost certainly good for me financially.

But when I grew up my dad drummed into me "You don't vote for what suits you, you should always vote for people who need help. The strong should help the weak. The rich should help the poor. That way society works best"

My dad should have been a Tory in every way. He was well qualified, had a great, well paid job and lived in a lovely house.

But he cared for people who didn't fare so well in life as he did. He wanted the best for his fellow man.

And he utterly detested Thatcher.

I loved my Dad.

I think I love your Dad. 

If only everyone thought like that, we'd all be far better off. 

Possibly the most stupid thing said so far.

Once again, suggesting that a Tory has no compassion, never gives to anyone but themselves, and a Labour supporter gives, gives gives.

Did you move out of your nice house and give the balance of your money to those less well off, so you all lived a similar lifestyle to those less well off??!! Or did he give to charity,or do something to actually aid lesser off people? I suspect the biggest givers to charity are actually evil, blood sucking Tories.

You suspect?  Is this like all these people you know that prefer zero hours contracts? 

Yes Kmac, I suspect. I have no facts, but I know plenty of Tories, including myself, that give plenty to charity.

As for zero hours contracts, I stand by what I say, especially having since said it, the media readily accept that more and more people like them.

Dont be a tosser!

[simonnatur]

It's still shocking to me that only 66% of people eligible actually used their vote in an election where the result was widely believed to be too close to call.
Of those who did 13% voted for UKIP, which since they had no prospect of achieving meaningful influence must be taken in part as a protest vote against the main parties or the system as a whole.
Maybe the winners feel self satisfied, but doesn't feel like a victory for democracy to me.

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm.

[TightEnd]

this made me chuckle



especially applies to twitter and facebook

people follow like minded people, retweet like minded people and favourite like minded stuff. its like they are in their own little bubble of "comfort" views that re-affirm their own view of things, and this applies to all sides

the scene on social media when the exit polll came out was remarkable

at least on here people get access to the whole gamut of views!

[TightEnd]

one quote i did see yesterday (wish i had seen it about six weeks ago)

"On evening the Tories & Lib Dems signed their coalition deal, William Hague told his wife Ffion: "I think I've just destroyed the Liberals."

[TightEnd]

"Krishnan Guru-Murthy ‏@krishgm

Wasn't Lab's mistake to think unpopularity of post-Iraq Blair and post-crash Brown meant Tory/Lib Dem voters wanted Lab to move left?

Those who liked Ed Miliband's ideas were already voting Labour. It didn't attract those voting to the right (Tory, some Libs and UKIP)"

[George2Loose]

Watched bbc QT yesterday. Was really interesting- a question from the audience

"why have the Tories taken all the credit for the coalition whilst the Lib Dems seemed to have paid for its failures?"

Two issues spring to mind-

Lib Dems doing the dirty and joining the tories
Student fees

Be interesting to see in 5 years time to see if traditional Lib Dem voters return to their party. Where did the lib dem vote actually go? To the Tories? Wouldn't that negate point one?

Also thought Paddy Ashdown came across very well. They could do with him back in the House!

[George2Loose]

"Krishnan Guru-Murthy ‏@krishgm

Wasn't Lab's mistake to think unpopularity of post-Iraq Blair and post-crash Brown meant Tory/Lib Dem voters wanted Lab to move left?

Those who liked Ed Miliband's ideas were already voting Labour. It didn't attract those voting to the right (Tory, some Libs and UKIP)"

This is a really good point. Labour seemed ashamed of their past which didn't help. It was almost like "yes we ballsed up last time even though we ruled for 13 years. We've learnt from that...." The electorate seemed unforgiving.

[TightEnd]

Be interesting to see in 5 years time to see if traditional Lib Dem voters return to their party. Where did the lib dem vote actually go? To the Tories? Wouldn't that negate point one?

it went conservative in the south west and southern england and surburban london, and midlands marginals.

it went tactically differently further north, usually to Labour

it went SNP in Scotland

[George2Loose]

Also those saying sour grapes etc. Politics for many is a belief system. I'm sure if Labour had one there wouldn't be that much good grace from the Tory supporters (turn the lights off etc).

Cameron can have no excuses this time. He needs to deliver. I just hope the cuts he plans for welfare don't have a long term effect on our country. I do think the in/out referendum on Europe is the right thing to do also but hopefully it'll happen next year rather than 2017