Falling in Love...

[MikeH]

It's odd, it's punishing stay at home mums of middle class families, which is normally a group the Tories want to support.

Women see child benefit is a very empowering benefit, it's being seen as one of many attacks on women in their proposals.

Oh and £3 a week married tax credit? What a waste of money.

[JackRudd]

AV > PR. PR is just a ****ing mess, gives the smaller parties far more power than their votes would suggest, merely because they'd have to be courted to make a majority.

This depends on the situation. For example, in the 2010 General Election in the UK, a PR system would arguably have lowered the power the minor parties had in deciding the make-up of the next government (because any two of the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats would have had more than 50% of the total vote share between them).

[C0ckney]

exactly jack, and the people who voted for the minor parties would still be represented in parliament. win-win. unfortunately too many people buy into the scaremongering.

i think that voting pattens would change quite a bit under a PR system in any case.

[C0ckney]

and tax credits in general are a waste of money. they should be scraped and replaced with a less complex tax system. one which is less prone to fraud and abuse.

[Provost Harrison]

I agree C0ckney, some higher allowance on income tax instead would surely be a lot more simple to administrate?

And nor do I like the way this is implemented. Yeah, sure, I agree that the wealthy should not be receiving handouts in this manner and eligibility should not be assessed this way...it should be on a sliding scale and then it seems strange that one could be in the upper tax bracket in a couple and the other could be earning a pittance and they would lose it, yet two people where both earning just under the upper tax threshold would still get the money. I hate those strange all-or-nothing barriers - like with stamp duty or capital gains tax or inheritance tax. They should all be progressive.

[Arrian]

Family with 1 income above 44k - Lose child benefit
Family with 2 incomes of combined 86k (43k each) - Keep child benefit

That's ridiculous.

-Arrian

[MOBIUS]

I agree that the whole situation has been extremely clumsily executed, however I still agree with the principle that if you're arguably well off (top 10% of earners for Christ's sake!) then you shouldn't be sponging off the state. Not to mention the fact that these people will be pocketing extra money as the Lib Dems increases to the income tax threshold start percolating through - nobody's mentioned that, in effect, by the time the child benefits are lost these people are likely to be compensated by a similar amount through that particular mechanism...?

Finally, the example of the single income person being penalised at those rates is still earning more on their own than TWO people earning the national average wage - so my sympathy is still a little thin on the ground even for them.

As for tapering, means testing etc, once you start with all those, the clunking machinery of bureaucracy starts to add £££s to the bill due to all the extra layers of bureaucracy involved! Surely it is far better to help people at source (i.e. increase income tax allowance thresholds), that way if you choose to spend your extra money on children, then all well and good - the rest of us can spend our extra money on a nice holiday instead!

Quite why we're subsidising people in this country to reproduce is beyond me, considering we're already such a crowded country...

[MOBIUS]

That's ridiculous.

-Arrian

It is. It's very clumsy - but in reality how many people are actually going to fit this criteria...?

[MOBIUS]

exactly jack, and the people who voted for the minor parties would still be represented in parliament. win-win. unfortunately too many people buy into the scaremongering.

i think that voting pattens would change quite a bit under a PR system in any case.

One of the scaremongering things is how all the nutcase parties will suddenly be wielding massive amounts of power overnight.

There are countless versions of PR out there as countries have experimented looking for the best type. One immediate thing you can do, which is already a widespread practice, is prevent parties from gaining seats if they garner less than a certain % of votes, usually 5%. Frankly if they get more than that - they deserve a voice!

IMO PR is the ultimate goal for the UK and AV is the necessary stepping stone, due to the opposition of the 'establishment' in the two main parties. Incidentally, they both use forms of PR to elect their leaders (much to the chagrin of David Miliband, I'm sure! ), so are guilty of gross hypocrisy in their opposition to it for the nation.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Hey folks! Anyone wondering why Moby's steering well clear of the VAT increases and Cameron's insistence on Trident staying?

[Dauphin]

I agree that the whole situation has been extremely clumsily executed, however I still agree with the principle that if you're arguably well off (top 10% of earners for Christ's sake!) then you shouldn't be sponging off the state. Not to mention the fact that these people will be pocketing extra money as the Lib Dems increases to the income tax threshold start percolating through - nobody's mentioned that, in effect, by the time the child benefits are lost these people are likely to be compensated by a similar amount through that particular mechanism...?

The increase in the personal allowance will be exactly offset by a decrease in the starting point of the 40% rate. So there is no net gain for top rate tax payers.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

A quick reminder of LibDem economic policy from the 2010 manifesto-

Raising the threshold at which people start paying income tax to £10,000
Freeing 3.6 million low earners and pensions from income tax completely
Restricting Tax Credits
Restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings
Introducing a Mansion Tax for properties worth over £2 million
Giving tax relief on pensions only at the basic rate
Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income
Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty
Closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the wealthy and polluters
Reforming local taxation, including looking into scrapping the Council Tax

[C0ckney]

I agree C0ckney, some higher allowance on income tax instead would surely be a lot more simple to administrate?

you'd think so wouldn't you. the idea of the government taking your money and then, using a very complex formula, giving you some back, always struck me as odd. why not just take less in the first place.

hopefully the income tax threshold will continue to be raised in years to come. taking the poor out of income tax.

[C0ckney]

One of the scaremongering things is how all the nutcase parties will suddenly be wielding massive amounts of power overnight.

There are countless versions of PR out there as countries have experimented looking for the best type. One immediate thing you can do, which is already a widespread practice, is prevent parties from gaining seats if they garner less than a certain % of votes, usually 5%. Frankly if they get more than that - they deserve a voice!

IMO PR is the ultimate goal for the UK and AV is the necessary stepping stone, due to the opposition of the 'establishment' in the two main parties. Incidentally, they both use forms of PR to elect their leaders (much to the chagrin of David Miliband, I'm sure! ), so are guilty of gross hypocrisy in their opposition to it for the nation.

yeah i broadly agree with that. although perhaps because of the size of our legislature you could make the threshold lower (3% or 4% maybe), but i'm sure that details like that could be looked at in detail and worked out.

i don't see AV as a stepping stone. i think that if we adopt AV we will have a system which is no better than the current one and we will never get PR. the establishment will say 'well we already gave you electoral reform and you're still not satisfied' and the issue will be kicked into touch for a generation.

[Arrian]

in reality how many people are actually going to fit this criteria?

I don't know, but surely it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. In fact, I would assume that opponents of the policy have crunched the numbers (and had their figures checked by skeptics, hopefully).

-Arrian