Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP

alastair said:
I'd agree with that but I'm worried about patronising their voters.

We've got a massive issue in general with people not having the slightest amount of knowledge about politics because it isn't taught in school. I'd like to know what percentage of people know the difference between a two-tier, unitary and hybrid council, for example.
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This is entirely true. I know a Danish girl who'd been blown away by how all of a sudden, in election week, English people start raving about politics with precious little knowledge about who or what they want to vote for. The fact that it isn't taught in school, combined with a general lack of ability to appreciate facts and statistics is a huge boon for parties like UKIP who undoubtedly thrive on it. There does need to be far more education provided on politics, but realistically, an educated populous is much more difficult to garner votes from. Which party is likely to take the stand and say "let's make it harder for ourselves!".

Redlambs said:
Ukip most certainly are not the answer. But when the questions aren't being listened to, what are frustrated people going to do?

And illegal immigration is by far the biggest problem, and it's bigger than most want to say mainly because the ones to deal with it benefit from it.

And for the record I employ people from all nations as and when I need them. My problem is I do it legally and pay fairly. So this issue affects me greatly and the frustrating thing is when you are trying to voice real concerns and get thrown facts and figures at you that are blatantly missing the point. It's also very worrying, as it leads to the very issue we are discussing here.

Why the hell people vote ukip.
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Electing a party with the tools to fix the problem, then campaigning to get them to fix the problem, is surely much more effective than electing a party with neither the tools nor the intent to fix the problem.
 
alastair said:
It's an immigration crisis because we have literally no plan to resolve these issues and it's only going to get worse. We have UKIP gaining votes left, right and centre, we have resentment towards immigrants increasing, and we've got the lowest paid getting poorer.
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You could read this and wonder why on earth you vote Conservative.
 
mitChley said:
Hardly. Mine was a response to a statement, yours is some attempt at point scoring.
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Hardly.

Immigration works both ways, I work in an industry full of immigration, which has links to a lot of the developing world which has shown how good our system can be.
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And I wouldn't disagree with that. I benefit from it too.
 
alastair said:
It's not tax free. The money's already been taxed once.
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Ah, the old taxed twice myth. Think of money like water - it is drunk many times by many different people, over and over again.

(And in the case of inheritance tax the inheritor has never paid any tax on the money they are to receive anyway)
 
alastair said:
Not everyone. Every election I don't vote Labour even though I'd directly benefit but you know, morals and that.
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Likewise, I've never voted for the Tories even though with them having just won my local council, it will probably mean a reduction in the council tax I'll pay - a direct benefit there rather than some generalisation.
 
Ryan's Beard said:
This is entirely true. I know a Danish girl who'd been blown away by how all of a sudden, in election week, English people start raving about politics with precious little knowledge about who or what they want to vote for. The fact that it isn't taught in school, combined with a general lack of ability to appreciate facts and statistics is a huge boon for parties like UKIP who undoubtedly thrive on it. There does need to be far more education provided on politics, but realistically, an educated populous is much more difficult to garner votes from. Which party is likely to take the stand and say "let's make it harder for ourselves!".



Electing a party with the tools to fix the problem, then campaigning to get them to fix the problem, is surely much more effective than electing a party with neither the tools nor the intent to fix the problem.
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I'm not the one voting Ukip. Though none of the parties has the intent to fix the problem. Well not the real problem anyway.
 
Something that people who think immigration is a big problem seem to believe is that the amount of work available to labourers is finite. That there's a certain amount of jobs/work/hours available and that the more immigrants, the less work natives will get. It's what's known as the lump of labour fallacy.

The more immigrants there are, the more the economy increases, and the more jobs there are available. As well as this, immigrants tend to work in jobs below what their level of education should normally dictate. They will therefore have a greater impact on the marginal output than their fellow (native) workers, whilst the native workers benefit from the increased marginal output in the form of increased wages, as workers are paid based on marginal output (or at least should be, and are with strong unions and laws).
 
Redlambs said:
I'm not the one voting Ukip. Though none of the parties has the intent to fix the problem. Well not the real problem anyway.
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No I know, sorry didn't mean to imply that.

No, none on the surface look to have a sound priority or plan drawn up for fixing the issue. My point was that parties like Labour and the Tories and maybe even the Lib Dems at a stretch have the capacity to fix it. They're experienced parties with sensible members who could, if pressured enough, realistically draw up a plan to combat the issue, they've got the "tools" as I horrifically cornily put it.

UKIP don't have the plan either, but should they get into power they're almost guaranteed to feck everything up. No amount of campaigning could move that bunch of turds to put together and carry out a plan to curb illegal immigration more than they could be relied on to successfully carry out anything. I'm sure Farage himself admitted he'd make a shite Prime Minister in some interview or other. They're just not equipped to run a country and realistically they don't expect to ever have to.
 
Feeky Magee said:
Indeed, imagine being concerned with income disparity and voting Tory
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This argument is intellectually pretty dim.

If you want everyone to be wealthier, don't vote for a party that consistently wrecks the economy and has never left the country with fewer unemployed people than it inherited.
 
Feeky Magee said:
Something that people who think immigration is a big problem seem to believe is that the amount of work available to labourers is finite. That there's a certain amount of jobs/work/hours available and that the more immigrants, the less work natives will get. It's what's known as the lump of labour fallacy.

The more immigrants there are, the more the economy increases, and the more jobs there are available. As well as this, immigrants tend to work in jobs below what their level of education should normally dictate. They will therefore have a greater impact on the marginal output than their fellow (native) workers, whilst the native workers benefit from the increased marginal output in the form of increased wages, as workers are paid based on marginal output (or at least should be, and are with strong unions and laws).
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That's all well and good in a perfect world. But it isn't the real world.

The real world is constantly losing out on contracts because you refuse to pay as little as £20 a day to someone standing in a cold carpark in the morning. Someone who you then could take to get 'fast tracked' through official channels to get on any site.
 
Ryan's Beard said:
No I know, sorry didn't mean to imply that.

No, none on the surface look to have a sound priority or plan drawn up for fixing the issue. My point was that parties like Labour and the Tories and maybe even the Lib Dems at a stretch have the capacity to fix it. They're experienced parties with sensible members who could, if pressured enough, realistically draw up a plan to combat the issue, they've got the "tools" as I horrifically cornily put it.

UKIP don't have the plan either, but should they get into power they're almost guaranteed to feck everything up. No amount of campaigning could move that bunch of turds to put together and carry out a plan to curb illegal immigration more than they could be relied on to successfully carry out anything. I'm sure Farage himself admitted he'd make a shite Prime Minister in some interview or other. They're just not equipped to run a country and realistically they don't expect to ever have to.
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Hand on heart I honestly don't know a single person who actually wants them in power.
 
alastair said:
I vote for them sometimes but am also willing to vote for others too.
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However, you did just vote for them now?

It just appears to be a juxtaposition of voting for a party with quite regressive tax policies, and make that statement.
 
Redlambs said:
Why would you call someone a teenager then post that?

I could very well guess, but we shouldn't fall out over what should be an interesting debate. So let's shake hands and get back on track shall we?
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I didn't call you a teenager, but ok, agreed.
 
mitChley said:
However, you did just vote for them now?

It just appears to be a juxtaposition of voting for a party with quite regressive tax policies, and make that statement.
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Charging the wealthiest people more tax is really quite regressive. It's a simplistic view that helps no-one.

If you care about poor people, you vote Tory, in my view. Or Lib Dem. Not Labour.
 
alastair said:
Charging the wealthiest people more tax is really quite regressive. It's a simplistic view that helps no-one.

If you care about poor people, you vote Tory, in my view. Or Lib Dem. Not Labour.
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Personally, I disagree, but if that's your opinion, its your opinion.
 
I can never tell what Al actually believes and what he thinks will wind us up.
 
alastair said:
You know that just because the top rate is higher doesn't mean you accrue more tax.

It depends what you want. Do you want to make a political point, or do you just want the most amount of tax to redistribute?
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There's a balance to be struck though. It could, I'm sure, comfortably be higher for the wealthier chunk of the population without tipping over into losing revenue. You're looking to find the stable maximum, obviously, which I'm sure is higher than the current rate provides. But the Tories have to make a political point. Taxing the rich people doesn't win them votes.

I banged on about this in another thread but to my mind we need to entirely do away with political ideologies dictating what parties do. There is, obviously, a factual maximum to the amount of tax revenue you earn as a function of the rate at which you tax people, I'm sure it has in fact been worked out mathematically. Left and Right wing politics prevents either party from reaching that maximum though since the Tories have to pander to their voters and Labour have to pander to their own. God I hate people.
 
Ryan's Beard said:
There's a balance to be struck though. It could, I'm sure, comfortably be higher for the wealthier chunk of the population without tipping over into losing revenue. You're looking to find the stable maximum, obviously, which I'm sure is higher than the current rate provides. But the Tories have to make a political point. Taxing the rich people doesn't win them votes.

I banged on about this in another thread but to my mind we need to entirely do away with political ideologies dictating what parties do. There is, obviously, a factual maximum to the amount of tax revenue you earn as a function of the rate at which you tax people, I'm sure it has in fact been worked out mathematically. Left and Right wing politics prevents either party from reaching that maximum though since the Tories have to pander to their voters and Labour have to pander to their own. God I hate people.
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There's also a level of what is deemed fair to charge as well. I mean, is it fair to take 50%, 60% from people? Is that really just?

Agree though that both have to pander and that the actual balance would be quite easy to establish.
 
alastair said:
There's also a level of what is deemed fair to charge as well. I mean, is it fair to take 50%, 60% from people? Is that really just?

Agree though that both have to pander and that the actual balance would be quite easy to establish.
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To be honest, if you did actually work out the maximum I imagine it'd be pretty close to what most would deem fair. Since the loss comes in part from people moving to dodge tax or looking for loopholes to avoid the heavy rates. The point at which you're not offsetting income by overly encouraging this behaviour is probably what most better off people are happy to put up with, so it's "fair".

To be honest though, taxing at 50% above a certain cap is fine by me. You're assured enough to comfortably live on if you'd qualify for such an aggressive tax band. That's only my opinion though, if it turns out that a 50% band is, infact, past the maximum then obviously it's too much.
 
alastair said:
You know that just because the top rate is higher doesn't mean you accrue more tax.

It depends what you want. Do you want to make a political point, or do you just want the most amount of tax to redistribute?
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I want a more equitable distribution of income. Reducing taxes on the rich does nothing to boost economic growth (1), it simply bungs more of the cash to the high earners (2).

No correlation (1): GDP-per-capita growth rates and top marginal tax rates since the 1970s
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Strong correlation (2): Changes in top 1% pre-tax income shares and top marginal tax rates since the 1970s
SaezFig1(1).gif
 
Ryan's Beard said:
To be honest, if you did actually work out the maximum I imagine it'd be pretty close to what most would deem fair. Since the loss comes in part from people moving to dodge tax or looking for loopholes to avoid the heavy rates. The point at which you're not offsetting income by overly encouraging this behaviour is probably what most better off people are happy to put up with, so it's "fair".

To be honest though, taxing at 50% above a certain cap is fine by me. You're assured enough to comfortably live on if you'd qualify for such an aggressive tax band. That's only my opinion though, if it turns out that a 50% band is, infact, past the maximum then obviously it's too much.
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We could charge less tax for everyone if we ensured we got proper tax from those who avoid it.

That's why the argument for a simpler tax system has some weight but not a UKIP policy.

I don't agree with taxing half of people's income over any amount really. My personal maximum is really between 35%-45% depending on economic situation.
 
rcoobc said:
What about the EU isnt elected?
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Apart from the European Parliament, none of it is directly elected. The powers of the only directly elected body are relatively limited.

Feeky Magee said:
Read the studies for yourself:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=effects of immigration on wages and employment

Conclusions are largely that there's a slight reduction in the bottom 10-20% of earners, a slight increase in the rest, and a slight increase overall.
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I don't believe there are any firm conclusions that can be drawn from the empirical studies.

People can see the competition from European workers entering their own industries in front of their own eyes, though. There is no doubt whatsoever that it exerts a downward pressure on wages in certain sectors of the labour market. Of course these voters are going to be concerned about the economic impact of immigration.

I think a lot of the criticism of UKIP as a party associating with racists is both missing the point and falling on deaf ears with regards to parts of the mainstream electorate. Economic well-being trumps nearly everything when you're struggling, or near struggling.

Feeky Magee said:
Something that people who think immigration is a big problem seem to believe is that the amount of work available to labourers is finite. That there's a certain amount of jobs/work/hours available and that the more immigrants, the less work natives will get. It's what's known as the lump of labour fallacy.

The more immigrants there are, the more the economy increases, and the more jobs there are available. As well as this, immigrants tend to work in jobs below what their level of education should normally dictate. They will therefore have a greater impact on the marginal output than their fellow (native) workers, whilst the native workers benefit from the increased marginal output in the form of increased wages, as workers are paid based on marginal output (or at least should be, and are with strong unions and laws).
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I don't see how immigration can help to bring about economic growth unless there are labour shortages; but you're not even talking about a time-frame relating to real life. In the short-term, available jobs are finite. Increased competition will still negatively affect British workers, perceptibly.

Of course, the real problem which underpins every concern mentioned so far, is inadequate job security, wages and public services. We can talk about what immigration would be like if those problems weren't there, but they are.
 
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