General Election - 4th July 2024

Who will you be voting for in the General Election?

  • Labour

    Votes: 266 56.8%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 12 2.6%

  • Liberal Democrat

    Votes: 40 8.5%

  • Reform

    Votes: 71 15.2%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 28 6.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 51 10.9%
  • Total voters
    468
Worsleyweb said:
Anyone who does not think after 6 months in office Labour will come out with things are far worse than we thought and there will be significant tax rises is living in cloud cuckoo land!
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If you close your eyes and wish really hard that might happen. Wish for some unicormns and fairies while you’re at it.
 
Maybe we do need to pay more tax.

I'll tell you what, if you seriously want immigration cut then you will, as the cost of training the necessary extra people to be doctors, nurses, dentists, etc, will be a lot more than 50p. We are short of labour, and while it's tempting to think we can employ the unemployable for some jobs, in reality there are numerous practical issues. Like getting folk off drugs and hypnotising them so they are willing to get out of bed for minimum wage, as opposed to earning thousands by dealing.

The first step is compulsory ID cards for all so we can work out who is here by right and who isn't. But that will not be cheap to implement or enforce, and I can already hear libertarians whining about how unfair it would be.

I'm up for any policy the majority want as long as they understand the costs and are willing to pay up without moaning.

The state pension age probably needs to go up to 70 too. Maybe 75. That's if people really want to cut immigration.
 
Worsleyweb said:
Despite your rather rude tone i will give you my opinion. We need to move away from immigration as the ponzi scheme as the only way to grow our economy. People are not having kids as young largely as they cant buy a house before age 30. This is principally down to a supply and demand imbalance. The cost of housing is the reason most poeple are struggling. I see it at work - kids on 40k with £300k mortgages with their partner really struggling to get by.
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The number of houses have risen faster than the population has increased in the 14 years the Tories have been in power. If it's just supply and demand, then house prices should have, at the very least, remained the same (adjusting for inflation, if you'd like).

Of course it is supply and demand, it's just that it's not the immigrants that are causing that increased demand. Watch Homes Under the Hammer every day to see why young couples are really finding it so hard to buy. When was the last time you saw someone on that programme buy a house to actually live in?
 
Another factor is that more people nowadays live as singletons than was the case in the 1950s. You can't do a right lot about that as the government can't make marriage compulsory and ban divorce. Social change. There is no easy answer, though I get that people want there to be.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
The number of houses have risen faster than the population has increased in the 14 years the Tories have been in power. If it's just supply and demand, then house prices should have, at the very least, remained the same (adjusting for inflation, if you'd like).

Of course it is supply and demand, it's just that it's not the immigrants that are causing that increased demand. Watch Homes Under the Hammer every day to see why young couples are really finding it so hard to buy. When was the last time you saw someone on that programme buy a house to actually live in?
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I just checked your first line - unless i am mistaken - UK population has grown 5.2 million last 14 years. Number of homes built 2.1 million. Factor in the increased number of single person households in that period and you can see why we have a problem. We started the baseline we are discussing with a housing shortfall and we are exacerbating it. I am seeing 1 bed apartments for rent in Town at £1700 - yes £1700! That tells you the issue.
 
Another radical suggestion from the Tory-lites ;)

Interesting that the election/polling expert Rob Ford suggests that it's fairly neutral for Labour in terms of votes, as the areas with low voter registration tend to be Labour strongholds. I'm sure the Telegraph will be quick to explain that seat boundaries are decided based on the electoral register, and not how many people live in an area - so we could get a much fairer balance of MPs in future.

www.theguardian.com

Labour to bring in automatic voter registration under plans to boost franchise

Exclusive: Party’s voting reform proposals could add millions more people to electoral roll for future polls
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Worsleyweb said:
Yes course i did. How can i argue against that.
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Well at least you are honest. Would you support legislation that made it more difficult/less financially rewarding to be a landlord if it gave people the opportunity of owning their own home, secure tenancies or have a council house?
 
Worsleyweb said:
I just checked your first line - unless i am mistaken - UK population has grown 5.2 million last 14 years. Number of homes built 2.1 million. Factor in the increased number of single person households in that period and you can see why we have a problem. We started the baseline we are discussing with a housing shortfall and we are exacerbating it. I am seeing 1 bed apartments for rent in Town at £1700 - yes £1700! That tells you the issue.
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I think the figures I read (and it was a couple of months ago, so sorry if I can't remember exactly) must have been referring to housing in terms of how many people it could house rather than the actual number of houses then. Because of course you don't need a house per person. I did write about it at a bit more length in another thread (because I remember London in particular had built more than enough in theory), but I'm fucked if I can find it now.

ETA: Ah yeah, I remember now. If you do it as a percentage, then the number of houses has increased faster than the population. The houses have increased by 8% and the population was 6.9%.

I don't deny, of course, that there are other factors like single person occupancy, but all of these things are fairly moderate and should in no way result in the absolutely insane increases in property prices we've seen in the same period. That's down to speculation and asset accumulation, particularly by the extremely wealthy.
 
Worsleyweb said:
I just checked your first line - unless i am mistaken - UK population has grown 5.2 million last 14 years. Number of homes built 2.1 million. Factor in the increased number of single person households in that period and you can see why we have a problem. We started the baseline we are discussing with a housing shortfall and we are exacerbating it. I am seeing 1 bed apartments for rent in Town at £1700 - yes £1700! That tells you the issue.
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I suppose you'd need to know the breakdown of those 2.1m houses, but average occupancy is approx 2.36 people so if the figures for houses built/population are correct, then it's pretty much even. Enough houses for approx 5m people.

The average size of households hasn't increased during that time either - it's been pretty static for the last twenty years.
 
A week before the last Election Corbyn/Labour were around 28/1. This Time round just look at the price the Tory filth currently are
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We could start by having a mass build of prefabricated houses, similar to what happened after WW2. Prefabs nowadays are of much higher standard than previously. These would give an easy supply of cheap rented accommodation, quickly built giving a cheap accommodation and income to local authorities. This is a win, win with cheap rents leaving people with more money in their pockets.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
Well at least you are honest. Would you support legislation that made it more difficult/less financially rewarding to be a landlord if it gave people the opportunity of owning their own home, secure tenancies or have a council house?
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In part yes - rent controls have however practically turned off investment in property in Scotland making the supply and demand imbalance even worse and to the severe detriment of the economy. Raynor will no doubt want to introduce that down here I don't have all the answers on this - but planning law needs a good look at. Had to be made easier to develop new homes. I think part of the answer must be to consider abolishment of stamp duty for young people, government backed deposits, an improved large scale PRS sector.

A stable housing minister will be much welcomed.
 
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