Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

rent one, own one .... or you own one and your other half the other ..... lots of variations possible

in any case, though it will help funding for local councils, it won't reduce the price of these "holiday homes" by much if at all

what's grabbed the market by the testicles?
it was up a fair bit earlier and i see it's now down 20+

Perhaps, you came home!

story wrong .... it must be pining for me as i'm by the pool in Dubai as i write :-)

Cleggy's just trying to pay to his audience.

It would be childishly simple to get around any second home law.

oops

Just checking!

Hope it is not on business expenses.

8-)

--


Just out of interest, how many Tory and UKIP MPs in Scotland are likely to be elected for the London based parliament?

Seems fewer than labour!

Why?

Seems to me the Camerons are being rejected by more and more of the UK.

=-=-=-=-===

Edited.........!!!!!

of course it's all on biz ...... have been catching up on biz(!!) e-mails and tying up the loose ends of a couple of deals :-)

========

ukip
unlikely to be more than 5, though their adherents could skew the votes for others
kent and the medway constituencies are certainly totally cheesed with the number of immigrants invading their neck of the woods ..... whether that is perception or reality is irrelevant

A day in the sun for 2 e-mails and a little bonding????

HMRC where are?

Border control where are you!

I see Major is offering a choice between Bribery with Corruption, and Blackmail.

Why not add a little whiff of drugs?


Interesting what coerces some to make their decisions or choices.

Hey, ho, for politics!

jealousy gets you nowhere, except perhaps to stand on a political soapbox :-)

Migrants: Who Are They And Where Do They Go?



Migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean and get to Europe came from more than 40 countries in 2014, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

The agency recorded 165,000 people successfully making the perilous journey in 2014, a jump from 60,000 in 2013.

They come mainly from war-torn countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Here's how the numbers break down.

WHERE THEY COME FROM

Eritrea 28,557 (25%)
Syria 23,945 (21%)
Mali 7,971 (7%)
Nigeria 5,861 (5%)
Gambia 5,158 (5%)
Somalia 3,646 (3%)
Egypt 3,026 (3%)
Others 31,602 (31%)

WHERE THEY GO

The figures below show the number of refugees in European countries, as recorded by the UNHCR, in mid-2014.

Germany 200,805
France 237,985
UK 126,055
Sweden 114,175
Italy 76,263
Netherlands 74,707
Switzerland 57,783
Austria 55,598
Norway 46,106
Belgium 29,179

Tories gave me a 'hand up when my family had nothing', Sir John Major says

Former prime minister says David Cameron's party is the only one that 'cares' as he attacks 'every Labour government' since Macmillan for destroying the economy




By Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor

3:02PM BST 21 Apr 2015

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Sir John Major, the former Prime Minister, has said that he gave the Conservatives his "lifetime's work" because they are a party that that "cares" and offered him a "hand up when my family had nothing".




The former Conservative leader said that every Labour government under leaders from Harold MacMillan to Gordon Brown had left Britain in a state of "economic ruin" and is a party that "divides to rule" by creating class-warfare.


In a deeply personal speech, Sir John said he grew up with Labour but found that the party "divides to rule" by turning the "rich against poor, North against South, workers against boss". "We need to bring people together, not create chasms to prise us apart," he said.


The former Prime Minister also warned that the SNP represents a "real and present danger" and under a Labour government will "demand the impossible" and create "merry hell" when its demands aren't met. He warned that the parties ultimate purpose is to create "drive a wedge between Scotland and England" and break up the Union.

Sir John, who grew up on a council estate in Brixton, said in the West Midlands: "We will never all be born equal. Life isn’t like that. But it is the Conservative mission to make opportunities in life equal.

That is what first drew me to the Party nearly six decades ago. While Labour was offering me a hand “out”, the Conservatives offered me a hand “up”."

On Labour he said that while he "admires their virtues" the party has consistently "wrecked the economy" when it is in government.




He said: "Every single Labour Government we have ever had – from Ramsay MacDonald to Gordon Brown – has ruined the economy. Every single time. There’s a pattern. Labour wrecks the economy. The Tories

repair it but become unpopular in doing so. Labour are re‑elected and wreck it again. It’s time to break that pattern.

"I know Labour. I grew up with them. I admire their virtues. But Labour is a class-based Party. It was born so and remains so. It’s in its DNA. Labour divides to rule. To win votes, they will turn rich against poor. North against South. Worker against boss. They have done this before. And they are doing it now. But it is emphatically not what this country needs. We need to bring people together, not create chasms to prise us apart."

General election 2015: Labour's 'apocalyptic' SNP deal - 28 weeks later

How will things look six months into a Labour/SNP government? Not good. Not good at all.






By Jeremy Warner

5:49PM BST 21 Apr 2015

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OK, so the headline - a reference to the post-apocalyptic horror movie - may be a little over the top, but with a Labour minority government, supported by the Scottish National Party, appearing more likely as election day approaches, it seems worth exploring what things might look like six months after initial infection, as it were, by this unholy alliance of “progressives”. As you might expect, it’s not a happy picture.


Much separates the SNP from its putative Labour bedfellow - dismissively characterised by the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon as merely “Conservative-lite” - but there is also a lot they agree on, and certainly quite enough coalescent policy fodder to inflict lasting damage.





Spending



The SNP proposes a real terms increase in public spending of 0.5pc a year, which according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, broadly correlates with Labour’s own plans. The £12bn of additional welfare cuts pencilled in under current spending plans would be abandoned, and the lid would once again quickly be taken off health spending. On paper at least, the Lab/SNP fiscal compact would still amount to a slight squeeze, as spending is notionally meant to rise less quickly than output. In practice, it’s hard to see even this comparatively limited constraint holding for long given the plethora of election promises.


English university tuition fees would be reduced by a third, the “bedroom tax” would be reversed, and some of the Coalition’s welfare reforms would be unwound, very probably leading to higher overall welfare spending in the long run. The SNP has also indicated that it wants to reduce the age of entitlement to the state pension north of the border, this on the grounds that Scots tend not to live as long as the national average. Labour surely cannot concede pensions apartheid of this sort without a storm of English protest, but you never know.




Taxation


Soon after parliament reconvenes on May 18, there would be an “emergency Budget” to push through a series of tax increases on the better off, including a mansions tax, the restoration of the 50pc tax band and the removal of pension tax breaks.



A new tax on banker bonuses would be introduced, corporation tax would be increased to 21pc, and an additional levy would be imposed on tobacco companies, likely to be assessed on the basis of market shares. Historically, all new governments confronted by an ongoing deficit have tended to raise taxes more widely than indicated in pre-election manifestos. Labour/SNP is unlikely to differ.



The economy and financial markets


Easing back on fiscal “austerity” will probably cause the economy to grow a bit more strongly than otherwise, at least in the short run. Labour will meanwhile attempt to allay fears of a gilts market strike or sterling crisis by stressing its European credentials, which it claims makes it more business and investor-friendly than the Conservatives. Removal of uncertainty around a referendum on EU membership, Labour believes, will counteract any doubts markets might have on fiscal responsibility or an anti-wealth policy agenda.

Warnings of a bond market meltdown are, in any case, almost certainly exaggerated. Similar alerts were issued ahead of the election of Francois Hollande as president of France. In the event there was no discernable long-term impact. Economic stagnation makes investors ever more willing to finance notionally creditworthy governments. Yet the upshot is even less money for private sector investment, together with a tightening bias in monetary policy. Fiscal incontinence may well culminate in higher interest rates.




Banking and the City


A more overtly anti-finance agenda will quickly establish itself, with the new government a more likely push-over for the various banker bashing and anti-City initiatives coming out of Europe than the present Government.


Labour threats to break up the big banks are still very much alive, though the Competition and Markets Authority might already have defused the issue somewhat by announcing a formal investigation of the sector. This won’t report until next year. It’s unclear whether Labour determination to create two new “challenger banks” is satisfied by the current, enforced divestment by the major banks of TSB and Williams & Glyn's.



Employment


Both parties promise to increase the minimum wage to an approximation of the current “living wage” by the end of the parliament, and to abolish zero-hours contracts, even though most people on zero-hours say the contracts suit them




Energy


Woolly consumerist and environmental thinking instructs both parties on energy policy. Energy bills will be frozen for two years while the workings of the electricity market are investigated.


Labour also plans legally binding targets to decarbonise electricity production in its entirety by 2030, achieved in part through additional energy efficiency for 5m homes. And how’s that going to be paid for without raising bills? Don’t worry, the SNP has thought about that one – out of taxation, or another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. In all this, the greatest priority of all – how to incentivise the degree of investment needed to keep the lights on – seems to have been largely forgotten.



Labour also plans legally binding targets to decarbonise electricity production in its entirety by 2030, achieved in part through additional energy efficiency for 5m homes. And how’s that going to be paid for without raising bills? Don’t worry, the SNP has thought about that one – out of taxation, or another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. In all this, the greatest priority of all – how to incentivise the degree of investment needed to keep the lights on – seems to have been largely forgotten.

Labour also promises to re-regulate local bus services, by making them contract-based rather than commercially operated by private sector companies.



Scotland and the union


Even assuming outright independence is for the moment off the agenda, it is likely soon to put back on again. The SNP wants “full fiscal responsibility”, or control over all tax, spend and borrowing decisions north of the border. The IFS calculates that as things stand, the Scottish deficit is more than twice that of the UK as a whole at 8.6pc of GDP.

In the event of full fiscal responsibility, or even the halfway house proposed by The Smith Commission, the scale of this hitherto largely hidden subsidy from the rest of the UK to Scotland would become fully transparent and would almost certainly be regarded as too high a price to pay for continued union. QED; the SNP would have achieved its raison d’etre, and John Major's doom-laden predictions about where devolution would lead us, first aired nearly 20 years ago, would have been proved correct.

Nicola Sturgeon urges Ed Miliband to be bolder and less hidebound by the fiscal, national and free market conventions of the past. By the look of it, he’s unlikely to take much persuading.

Boris Johnson defends 'negative' Tory tactics - What's wrong with calling Ed Milliband a backstabber?

Mayor of London spends the day campaigning in Ramsgate, in the heart of Nigel Farage's target constituency of South Thanet, and asks “Have we become namby-pamby? Have we gone soft? What’s wrong with calling someone a backstabber?”




By Peter Dominiczak, Political Editor

6:00PM BST 21 Apr 2015

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Boris Johnson took the fight directly to Nigel Farage on Tuesday as he made his first campaigning appearance in the UK Independence Party’s leader’s target constituency.


The Mayor of London spent Tuesday morning campaigning in Ramsgate in the heart of South Thanet and said that people considering voting Ukip are now “focusing” on the “choice” at the election between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.


He also rejected claims about negative tactics used against Mr Miliband in recent weeks, saying the criticism of attacks on the Labour leader has been “namby-pamby”.




Mr Johnson also renewed his own attack on Mr Miliband, warning that the Labour leader “thinks the only problem with Socialism is that it hasn’t been properly tried and that he just needs one more go”.

His appearance in South Thanet triggered a furious response from Ukip, who flooded Ramsgate with activists and Ukip billboards mounted on vans.

Conservative strategists are confident that they can prevent Mr Farage winning the seat on May 7.




The Ukip leader has pledged to resign if he loses the election.

Mr Johnson campaigned in Ramsgate alongside Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative candidate, who previously served a senior member of Ukip.

The Mayor has been largely absent from the Conservative Party's national campaign until now.

Strategists hope that his high profile will help to shift the polls in the weeks before the election.

Mr Cameron has urged traditional Tory supporters who have defected to Ukip in recent years to "come home" to the Conservative Party.

Asked if there is evidence Ukip supporters are now “coming home”, Mr Johnson told The Telegraph: “I think they are a bit, yes. I do notice people really are focusing.



“For many Ukip supporters there is no real antipathy towards the Conservatives. They just want the Conservatives to do a few things – on the referendum, on the reforms to welfare. They are thinking better [The Conservatives] than go for Miliband.

“In the end you’ve just got to keep persuading. It’s a straight choice.”

• Election live: "Ukip manifesto has one 'half black' and a 'fully black' person"

Mr Johnson said that he believes that the polls will begin to shift decisively towards the Conservatives in the final ten days of the general election campaign.

“A lot of people are undecided,” Mr Johnson added. “But a lot of people, and not just people supporting Ukip, will veer to the Tories in the last few days.”

The Conservatives were earlier this month criticised for warning that Mr Miliband is prepared to “stab the country in the back” over Trident, the nuclear deterrent, in the same way as he “stabbed his brother in the back” over the leadership of the Labour Party.



Mr Johnson rejected any claims that the Tories have been overly negative in their attacks on Mr Miliband.

He said: “Have we become namby-pamby? Have we gone soft? What’s wrong with calling someone a backstabber?”


Mr Johnson made a series of warnings about the consequences of a Labour government propped up by the SNP.

He said: “I think it would mean higher interest rates, it would mean a colossal increase in government borrowing - £148billion. It would mean the return of 1970s style worker participation in company decisions. It would mean the return of the unions, there would be a huge increase in tribunals, anybody running a company would face an increase in corporation tax.

“It would be like putting a ball and chain around a British economy that is turning into one of the best potential athletic performers in the world.

“There we are, lined up at the start of the 100 metres final in the Olympics and Labour comes and clamps a ball and chain around it.

For the first time in this campaign the Tories have Labour on the back foot

Dan Hodges look at who won day 23 of the election campaign




By Dan Hodges

5:47PM BST 21 Apr 2015

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Day 23 has again been dominated by one issue – the threat of an SNP/Labour pact.


As I said yesterday, this is now a “strategic issue”. It is dominating media cycles and being brought up spontaneously on the doorsteps to campaigners of all parties.


For the second day in a row Labour have tried to switch the focus back on to their “NHS week”, but without success. The Conservatives deployed John Major to deliver a speech reinforcing the Miliband/Sturgeon threat message, and it pushed Ed Miliband’s health speech of the airwaves, (when the pooled broadcast feed wasn’t freezing).




If Labour are the clear losers from this concerted attack, there are also two other winners. One is obviously the SNP, with Nicola Sturgeon now being described in reverential tones as the “Scottish Boris” by some journalists.


But the other less obvious beneficiaries are the Lib Dems. Forcing the voters to decide who they would prefer holding the balance of power in the event of a hung-parliament is the central plank of their own campaign strategy, and the events of the past few days are helping frame that choice. What they want to do now is nudge the focus back towards the threat posed by a right-wing coalition, comprised of Ukip, Tory hardliners and Northern Irish unionists. That’s why Paddy Ashdown was sent out across the broadcast studios to boisterously remind people of the days when John Major was in hock to the “b–––––––” on his own back benches.

But for the first time in this campaign the Tories have Labour on the back foot in a serious way. Today was a big win for them.

John Major is right - a government propped up by the SNP would have no democratic legitimacy

Unlike the current coalition, an alliance of Ed Miliband with Nicola Sturgeon would mean 4 per cent of the electorate holding the rest of us to ransom




4:38PM BST 21 Apr 2015

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Don't say he didn't warn us. Sir John Major pointed out the unholy consequences of an SNP-Labour government at the start of March. Since then, such a creature has become more probable, with both Ed Balls and Andy Burnham indicating that, despite Miliband's denials in the debate, a Labour minority government could do a deal with the SNP. And today, Sir John returns to the (most important) theme (of the campaign) today, warning of the increased-spending-in-Scotland-at-England's-expense ratchet that an SNP-Miliband administration would undoubtedly impose.


Let’s deal with two things that a Labour government propped up by the SNP would not be.


It would not be the same sort of democratic curiosity as a Conservative government elected to Westminster, but which lacked a popular mandate in Scotland (like Mrs Thatcher’s). Neither would it be the same as a Labour government elected to rule the whole of the UK, while losing out in seats or votes to the Conservatives in England, like (nearly all of them).





I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read such an assertion, either by one of the liberal-Left’s columnar friends (“That’s the price of Union!” they shrug) or by the frankly delusional cybernats. To pretend that government by the SNP would be “just one of those Union things” requires such an intensity of looking the other way that it calls to mind the Webbs, prancing about Soviet Russia and cooing at all the machinery, managing valiantly not to notice the gulags.


A minority Labour government, propped up by the SNP, is qualitatively different to a Labour government for which Devon and Suffolk have declined to offer support. Barring pathological results (i.e. by gaining 100 per cent of the vote) it is always possible to identify geographical parts of the UK where any government lacks a plurality of the popular vote.

But nationalist-separatists like the SNP, in opposition to Unionist parties, do not stand in every part of the UK. It follows that an executive governing for the UK but reliant on post-election deals with the SNP couldn’t claim to represent the by definition and by design, and so - I don’t think this an exaggeration - it really couldn’t claim democratic legitimacy.

This seems important enough to spell out again. If you live in England, you can’t vote for or against the SNP: I think it follows that the SNP cannot legitimately make laws that apply to you. Such a government wouldn’t be the “West Lothian Question”; it would be an obscenity.



The second thing an SNP-Miliband government would not be is a coalition - not of the sort to which we’ve become accustomed (and which many of us quite like) .The Liberal-Tory entity to which we’ve just bid farewell was upfront: the two parties published their joint commitment to government, which is still online. We’ve got so used to the essentially childish squabbles from the Left of the minor party and the ultra-Right of the major one that it’s possible to overlook just how grown-up the coalition has been.

Nothing like this would hold with an SNP-Miliband administration. We’ve been told that it wouldn’t be a coalition, but a minority Labour government, kept in office just so long as the nationalists agree. What support the SNP would extract from Miliband wouldn’t be published in a civil service memorandum for us all to scrutinise.

Whisky and haggis at No. 10? More likely government by text message. “Ed. We won’t vote for the Queen’s Speech unless it contains a bill to destroy the UK’s nuclear deterrent.” “Ed, I can’t support the finance bill unless the Barnett formula is enhanced.” As Sir John puts it, this would "put the country on course to a Government held to ransom on a vote by vote basis."




Sturgeon’s debate claim, about desiring some sort of “progressive majority” against Conservatives, is ludicrous on its own mathematical terms. Her party will represent about 4 per cent of the UK electorate, Mr Miliband perhaps 31 per cent. Some majority. Some progress.

And though it’s hard for me to see into Labour souls, I can’t see how a “progressive” country, by which I understand a more social democratic one, can be brought into being by instituting border controls along Hadrian’s wall. This is what “progressives” mean by "solidarity"? Bugger off, English poor? Labour voters in England be aware: those border controls aren't metaphors. They are the concrete endpoint of the SNP's every desire.

That Sturgeon's claim for a progressive majority lacks arithmetic or psychological credibility does not mean that her intent should be under-estimated. Nationalists are nothing if not single-minded, and the weirdness of many of their online supporters (nearly half of whom think that a collapse in the oil price is “neither good nor bad” for Scotland) didn’t just pop out of a random passing vacuum. It has been stoked by the SNP for decades. The SNP isn’t a misguided Left-wing party, but a Left-wing nationalist, separatist movement that won’t let the small matter of democratic illegitimacy stop it attaining its goals.

In Scotland, such is the fear among the pro-Union majority that for the first time in my life I’ve heard Tories openly discussing the possibility of voting Labour in seats where they are best-placed to keep the SNP out.




In England the equivalent calculation should be made by every voter who cares about democratic Union. Liberals in those rich middle-class seats around London; West Midlands Lab-Con floaters; fishermen on the south coast, thinking about Ukip: consider your choice harder than you’ve considered any vote before. This isn’t a by-election or a European parliament poll; it’s not even, any longer, “just” a general election.

Any vote that increases the chance of a minority Miliband administration directly increases the probability that the UK will be governed by the implacable (and literally unelectable; she’s not even a candidate in Scotland) hand of Sturgeon. Without the freedom to kick out the government, we have no freedom worth calling the name. I'm sure the irony isn't lost on the William-Wallace-loving SNP.

With thanks from an old friend!

Shows true tory values.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

C+P

"
Ill show you how the TORIES care below............

Unapologetic Cameron challenged by Andrew Marr over benefits deaths and ILF closure

Category: Latest news
Created: Monday, 20 April 2015 11:07

David Cameron was challenged over the death of diabetic benefits claimant James Clapson and over the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) on Sunday’s Andrew Marr show. Cameron’s unapologetic response was that there are hardship funds available for ‘difficult cases’.

On his programme yesterday Marr asked Cameron if he accepted that the £22 billion of welfare cuts so far ‘has hurt a lot of poor and vulnerable people?’

marr cameron interviewCameron replied that it had involved ‘difficult decisions’ but:

“ . . . we have protected for instance the pension, we’ve protected benefits for the lowest paid, we’ve always made sure that we’ve increased spending on disability benefits rather than reduced it.”

On the subject of why one million people now depend on food banks, Cameron argued that:

“One of the things we did was that Labour, because they didn’t like the PR of this, they didn’t advertise or promote the existence of food banks through job centres. We changed that because we thought that was, that was basically sort of selfish and shortminded…”

And when it came to the subject of James Clapson, a former soldier who failed to turn up for a Jobcentre interview, had his benefits sanctioned and died after being unable to refrigerate his insulin, Cameron was entirely unapologetic. His response was:

“Well we have hardship funds and councils have hardship funds for exactly those sorts of tragic cases but if you’re asking me is it right that people who are asked to turn up for interviews or asked to fill in a CV or asked to apply for a job should have to do those things before getting benefits then yes it’s right that we do have that system in place . . .”

When asked about another case involving a claimant with learning difficulties who had his benefits sanctioned for not using a computer, Cameron again relied on hardship funds and entirely ignored Marr’s suggestion that there should be a review of the system:

“I look at all of those individual cases and all of those cases can be addressed by the hardship funds and by the flexibilities that are there in the system . . . People watching this programme who pay their taxes, who work very hard, they don’t pay their taxes so people can sign on and show no effort at getting a job, as I put it on the steps of Downing Street those who can should; those who can’t we always help”

Cameron was equally dismissive of the abolition of the ILF, due to take place in June:

“Well what we’ve done is we’ve given that responsibility to local councils as the last resort and local councils have that funding available to help.”

When Marr pointed out that the funding is only for one year, Cameron replied simply “they have it for difficult cases” before once again reminding listeners how many more people have moved into work under the Coalition.

Cameron’s lack of compassion, apology or understanding combined with a total refusal to actually look into what is going wrong with the benefits system are a powerful reminder of what another five years of Conservative led government will mean to sick and disabled claimants.

You can watch the Andrew Marr show and you can download a transcript of the interview.

What happened to the 'squeezed middle', Ed Miliband?



Do you remember the Squeezed Middle? In 2011 it was the Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year”. It was held up as an example of how Ed Miliband was setting the agenda in highlighting the recession’s grinding impact on middle-income families. Actually, it wasn’t his phrase, but something he’d appropriated from the then shadow health secretary John Healey, who he subsequently sacked. But for a while, squeezing the middle was all the rage.

The reason I ask is we’ve just had a session of PMQs which has underlined why David Cameron is on course to win the next election and Miliband is on course to lose the next election. It is because it’s now Cameron, not Miliband, who stands firmly on the side of the squeezed middle.

This was always going to be a tough PMQs for Labour’s leader; he’s struggling with a sore throat and it’s a day with a “y” in it. So he tried to turn the session into an ambush. He began by attacking Cameron’s proposed tax-cut, which he claimed was unfunded. Then he flourished a quote from welfare minister Lord Freud, in which the Tory peer had suggested the severely disabled might be paid a lower level of the minimum wage to encourage employers to reintegrate them back into the workplace. And he concluded by shouting “the nasty party is back!”

Now, on one level – a tactical level – it was a skilfully executed ambush. The Government had some good news it wanted to get out today about the record drop in unemployment, and that will now be overshadowed by the Freud row. It also helped Miliband get on the front foot a little bit after Cameron had pummelled him in their early exchanges.

But general elections aren’t won by good tactics. They’re won by good strategy. And once again, Labour have made another strategic blunder.

Two weeks ago Cameron sprung a couple of traps of his own. For four years the Tories have been building up their economic credibility by making a series of tough and unpopular fiscal choices. It’s hurt them in the polls. It’s got Tory backbenchers anxious. So in Birmingham, Cameron took the economic insurance policy he’d been carefully investing in, and he cashed it in.

Everyone would be getting a tax cut, he said. The country had been through years of pain. We had all faced hard times, and there were more hard times to come. But as a result of their sacrifice the British people had earned the right to keep a little more of what they earned. And he, David Cameron, would deliver it for them.

Today we saw Labour’s response. Miliband’s initial reaction was to cry foul. Where would the money come from, he asked? On Twitter, a lot of Labour supporters were furiously claiming “If Labour had made an uncosted spending commitment like that we would have been slaughtered for it.”

Yep. Because Cameron and George Osborne took the decision to build up their fiscal credibility at the expense of short term-political popularity, and Labour did the opposite. Labour were warned time and again that a reputation for macroeconomic competence was not a “nice to have”, but a prerequisite for government. And today they learned why. When the Tories say “trust us” on the economy, people listen. When Labour says “trust us” on the economy, people don’t.

That was the first trap Miliband fell into. The second came with his attack on Lord Freud. It will resonate. People will say “typical bloody Tories, picking on disabled people on the minimum wage.”

And then Cameron will slap down Lord Freud. He will say – as he did today with justification – that no one gets to lecture him about caring for people with severe disability. There will be a 24-hour media squall, and then the agenda will move on.



But when it does, a new dividing line will have been drawn. Between Labour, the party that stands for severely disabled jobseekers. And the Tories, who stand for everyone else. Between Miliband, who thinks tax cuts are practised by nasty parties and nasty politicians. And Cameron, who thinks tax cuts are what the hard-working people of Britain deserve. Between Labour, who are the party of the oppressed minority. And the Tories – the new party of the Squeezed Middle.

Ed Miliband was right back in 2011. The votes of middle-income earners do indeed represent the key to victory at the next election. And he’s handed that key to his political opponents.

Forget Nigel Farage and his people’s army. It’s the middle classes who will deliver the coup de grace to Miliband and Labour. In previous recessions the middle classes have been largely insulated from the pain. This time they've been hurting as well.

And when they walk into the polling booths next May, they will remember. They will look at Labour’s mansion tax. They will look at Miliband’s words on a tax cut. They will see his dogged pursuit of his core vote strategy. And they will say “what exactly is Labour offering me?”

They won’t articulate their disquiet publicly. They won’t let on to any pollsters, or any of their friends on the dinner party circuit they are contemplating a devil’s embrace with the Tories. But when they’re in the quiet of the polling booth they will cast a final glance over their shoulder, stare at their ballot paper long and hard, and say “I have to think of myself now.”

The Squeezed Middle are looking for a champion. Not so long ago that champion was Ed Miliband. But not now.

Robbed from db's thread on afn.



By Alan Cochrane

8:14AM BST 21 Apr 2015


The SNP's manifesto launch was a triumph of presentation, but its patronising tone would infuriate most tolerant of neighbours

They do a nice line in patronising the English, do the Scottish Nationalists. They always have. Alex Salmond, their ‘lost’ leader – he was nowhere to be seen at their manifesto launch yesterday – perfected the tactic over many a long opposition year.

And his successor, the lady who, incredibly, is already grabbing more headlines on a daily basis than Wee Eck notched up in a month, is proving herself to be pretty good at telling the English what’s good for them, too.

Nicola Sturgeon insisted that she had no intention of being destructive or disruptive if and when her expected small army of SNP MPs arrive at the Commons shortly after May 7. What she plans is for her party to use their considerable influence to improve the lives of the English ( oh yes, and the Welsh and Northern Irish, too) by making them sort of ‘honorary’ Jocks. That way they’ll get the same benefits as those who live north of the border.


Far from arguing for more powers for the Scottish Parliament, which is the normal SNP mantra, the Nats now plan to use the powers of Westminster to change the face of Britain.

Her manifesto was a remarkable document in that such things are normally aimed at the people you hope will vote for you. Given the opinion poll predictions that some kind of Nat tsunami is on the way, Ms Sturgeon clearly thinks that there’s not much point in adding to the seats she already reckons are in the bag in Scotland and so she’s directing her election promises as much at the rest of Britain as at her domestic audience.

It is an exaggeration to say that there’s a reference to the English on every page of the document ‘Stronger for Scotland’ but only just; it is littered with declarations that a huge SNP vote will be just what the doctor ordered for those poor benighted people south of the Cheviots.

And the lady brushed it aside with a wee giggle when Alex Thompson of Channel Four asked her why she thought the English were scared of her. They weren’t she insisted – in fact her in tray was full of letters from England, asking how people there could vote for the SNP.

That was because, she added, “people in the rest of the UK are as desperate for change as we are in Scotland.”

And change is what they’re going to get all right if Ms Sturgeon gets her way. The SNP will block all privatisation in the English NHS and will use its votes to restore to the public sector those bits in England that may already have been hived off. Indeed her manifesto notes with approval the target set in England, not Scotland, for an increase of £24 billion in NHS spending by 2021.

The SNP will also oppose all further spending cuts and instead recommend increases of £140 billion across the United Kingdom.

And cuts in welfare benefits, such as child benefit or tax credits, anywhere in the UK, will be opposed whilst the bedroom tax would be abolished because as the SNP’s manifesto points out there are one million children living in poverty in Britain at present.

Oh yes, and if the English think they can just vote to leave the EU they can think again, because Ms Sturgeon’s shock troops intend to apply a ‘triple lock’ to European membership – in that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as England, would have to vote for an exit. And if they didn’t all agree, the UK would remain a member. Just like that.

Yesterday’s launch was, as someone who’s covered them for over 30 years, a stunning occasion in presentational terms in spite of – or maybe because of – being set in a climbing centre outside Edinburgh. And we were treated to a tour de force by this lady who was a virtual unknown outside of Scotland only six months ago but who has emerged from Salmond’s shadow in sensational fashion.

We’re told that the poor old boy was out canvassing in his Gordon constituency yesterday – a likely story, if ever I heard one; kept well away from yesterday’s big event so as not to steal Nicola’s thunder, more like.

All of the above is, of course, dependent on the Nats being able to do a deal with Ed Miliband’s Labour Party, whom Nicola continually goads that she’ll make them proper Lefties

She airily dismisses any idea that anyone other than herself – Wee Eck perhaps - would handle the post May 7 negotiations with Labour, even though she’ll be 400 miles away. “ I’m in charge,” she declares. We shall see.

David Cameron thinks that a Labour Party so obviously in thrall to the SNP will aid his cause. However, might it be a lot more than that. La Sturgeon says Scottish independence isn’t an issue on May 7. But isn’t the patronising tone of the SNP towards their nearest neighbours - telling them what’s coming their way whether they like it or not - enough to infuriate and antagonise even the most tolerant of people?

If so, and they lose any residual affection they ever had for the 300-year-old union and said ‘good riddance’ to the Scots once and for all wouldn’t that suit Ms Sturgeon down to the ground.