Capital Summertime Ball 2024

[John]

The success of the Election 2010 thread earlier this year really showed that young people have a very valid opinion when it comes to the world of politics, especially people on UM. I've created this thread for members to discuss all things political.

There is lots happening at the moment, namely today's emergency budget. How will the budget effect you? How will it effect your parents or your children?

Let us know here

[Viv]

Smashing topic.

Naturally, the Conservatives will hit the people on the lowest incomes the hardest, in the same way they always operated.

[DC]

i wonder what all the students think who were brainwashed into voting for clegg? they are about to have everything labour gave them, taken away.

[Viv]

Totally agree. 10,000 less uni places anticipated apparently ?!

A number of people I have spoken to as well didn't even bother to vote... voter apathy!! :-(

Listening to it now: they're pretty much blaming Labour as we speak...

[DC]

they'll be blaming labour for all their own mistakes that will have messed everything up even in 4 years time. take the schools for example. why do you think they are giving "power" to people so they can run them? so they don't have to take as much responsability for them, you'll see pearents and teachers having to do fundraisers to get money in for the free school meals. which the torys have already stopped.

the fickle population of this country have been brainwashed into thinking that they had it awful under labour by the pro tory media. now they are going to lose the little things in life (to start with), that they didn't realise were there before. but what's turned out to be oh so important now. the worse thing is, i didn't vote the bastards in, but im still going to have to suffer!

[Viv]

Oh here we go.... the welfare Bill coming up!! Yep, hit the poor families hard where people are genuinely struggling to find work.

You've got to make it worthwhile for people to go to work, by increasing wages substantially.

[Guest]

This is terrible. My Mums practically in tears.

[Viv]

I'm not surprised. :-(

[DC]

did you see how smug they looked when harriet herman was laying into them, she was alomst in tears watching 13 years of work wash away. and all they could do was sit there with a look that said, "we're fucking everything up and looking after our own backs, and there's nothing you can do about it".

[Viv]

Yep, noticed it. Nick Clegg actually looked distinctly uncomfortable tho'.

[The Stig]

Never stated my politics opinions on here but over the course of the Elections I was part of BBC Radio Leicester's Election coverage and I really was campagining for young people to start taking an interest and following politics, our vote counts just as much as someone's who is twice our age. I think it is very important.

As for this budget while the part of me that voted labour last month is smugly saying I told you so to people, a small part of me is thinking that whilst it will undoubtedly be very very hard on so many of us in the short term, in the long run it might get us out of recession faster.

[Guest]

A £2bn levy on the banks? What an absolute fucking joke! It makes me so angry. It should be somewhere in the region of £50bn and all of their profits should be seized and diverted straight into the Treasury.

Punitive taxes on the richest people and companies of this country is the only way out of the mess they're responsible for! There should also be a disproportionately unfair carbon tax directly imposed on the wealthiest companies and individuals (aimed at raking in around £10-15bn per year) and a massive hike in income tax on them.

Squeeze the cunts dry!!!

[E*F*4L]

20% VAT will raise £13b yet the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan have already cost £20b.

don't see why i should have to pay for other peoples mistakes !

i have a job, i have never been in debt, all the money the Labour party wasted on school's/NHS etc none of it went to me,

i don't have £27,000 debt around my neck, the American banks, the UK banks, Tony Blair & Gordon Brown put it there they should pay it back not me !

this country is shit !

[The Stig]

don't see why i should have to pay for other peoples mistakes !

Because it's the way of our political system. No matter who is in power, mistakes will always be corrected by the tax payer.

[E*F*4L]

Because it's the way of our political system. No matter who is in power, mistakes will always be corrected by the tax payer.

where there's blame there's a claim

[kyle_y]

No real surprises there. Hitting the poor the hardest, exactly what you'd expect from a Tory Government.

Yep, noticed it. Nick Clegg actually looked distinctly uncomfortable tho'.

No matter how hard he tries, he'll never look as uncomfortable as Vince Cable does sitting on the frontbench beside Tories.

[franzi]

Because it's the way of our political system. No matter who is in power, mistakes will always be corrected by the tax payer.

first thing that came to mind when I read this was France before the revolution: people who are already poor/tax payers have to pay more, whereas rich people are actually tax-exempt... It has some similarities to the political system today..

[kyle_y]

first thing that came to mind when I read this was France before the revolution: people who are already poor/tax payers have to pay more, whereas rich people are actually tax-exempt... It has some similarities to the political system today..

These are the sorts of loopholes which the rich are exploiting that the Lib Dems pledged to close. Of course to be swiftly sweeped aside when they formed the coalition as the Tories need to appease their middle-upper class supporters..

[Guest]

first thing that came to mind when I read this was France before the revolution: people who are already poor/tax payers have to pay more, whereas rich people are actually tax-exempt... It has some similarities to the political system today..

It's been that way since time immemorial.

[Viv]

I heard something very interesting on Radio 2 a couple of weeks back one Saturday.... and, boom...boom... boom... it's THIS:-

A caller was on who claimed Thatcher years ago signed some kind of paper (can't remember the name) to do with borrowing. This caller claimed the current Government is only just outside of acceptable amounts of borrowing.

If this is true, then we are all basically being conned into paying more, where we don't have to.

[Guest]

I've heard interesting comments made recently that if the UK was able to get back all of the tax owed by non-doms and the rich who have avoided paying taxes over the last ten years we would receive somewhere in the region of £135bn, which would almost clear the deficit.

[Dan the Hedgehog]

Certainly think that the banks should be hammered to pay back the money with interest, am sure they are probably charging us interest when they borrowed from us.

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

Certainly think that the banks should be hammered to pay back the money with interest, am sure they are probably charging us interest when they borrowed from us.

Exactly.

[Dan the Hedgehog]

Would be nice if we were giving the option to actually vote on where to cut the funding/save money on. core services like hospitals/emergency services/armed forces shouldn't be cut but made lean so money not wasted. Non-essential building works,programs should be scrapped or put on hold.

[kyle_y]

Would be nice if we were giving the option to actually vote on where to cut the funding/save money on. core services like hospitals/emergency services/armed forces shouldn't be cut but made lean so money not wasted. Non-essential building works,programs should be scrapped or put on hold.

Did you by any chance see the 'Dispatches: How to Save £100 Billion. Live' show on Monday. Was quite interesting, only just watched it myself though. 600 people in the audience voting on where they'd cut services and raise taxes, and start charging etc and to what extent in order to cut the deficit. I think the measures the audience voted in favour of equalled about £78 billion in total. Worth checking out on 4oD if you can, quite boring the start with but it gets quite good when the debates and votes started.