Is May about to call an election?

So tories partly responsible for murder of jo cox?
That is quite a statement.
As for being directly responsible for an intern committing suicide – that is even more objectionable.
I agree they failed to properly discharge their duty of care; young cons chairman did a pispoor job and investigaton was far from thorough.
As for deaths/suicides of marginalised in society – that’s not unique to tories being governing party. It’s desperately sad but also happened under labour govs.
A few facts to support your assertions would be helpful.

http://calumslist.org

@frankconway..If you wish to find the facts you seek it’s all out there in the public domain.

People lying on their mortgage applications is fraud. That brought down Northern Rock and Halifax Bank of Scotland (as a minimum). Send all those borrowers to jail ? No, blame the banks.

I like your analogy Jamba. Those people will have lost their houses and be prevented from getting a mortgage in future. The analogy is lose your seat and not allowed to stand again.

@eden – that’s a clear cop-out on your part in saying ‘…….it’s all in the public domain’.
You made three big statements without providing a shred of evidence and then, when asked, your response is basically – it’s out there, go and find it for yourself.

 Those people will have lost their houses and be prevented from getting a mortgage in future.

Not necessarily true. My brother inlaw is self employed and exaggerated his income to get a mortgage. The problem came when the IR asked why he hadn’t declared this amount on his tax return. He came clean with them and they accepted his explanation, probably because it was so prevelant at the time. His mortgage provider weren’t bothered in the slightest. Payments were up to date, so in his case so they were happy to let him just carry on.

My 2 pence is its really not a big deal, its a few £ spent from one pot instead of the other.

People lying on their mortgage applications is fraud.

Where do you draw the distinction between lying=ok/not ok?

@ulysse – without poring over every detail, it appears that a number of the suicides listed were of people with known mental health problems.
I’m no expert in mental health but would suggest many of those named could have had a number of ‘triggers’ which would have resulted in suicide; problems arising from gov social policies may well have been one of a number of concerns.
Can you say definitively that gov social policies in any form were entirely responsible for the suicides listed?

For your information I do a lot of voluntary work with the homeless – rough sleepers specifically – and have more than a passing interest in suicide prevention as a direct result; the incidence of homeless suicides is much higher than in the general population.

Taxi25 – well by jamba’s logic he ought to have been locked up. My suspicion, given he was definitely lying, was he was also defrauding the public purse, but he may not have been.

“
My suspicion, given he was definitely lying, was he was also defrauding the public purse, but he may not have been.”

That’s the problem with trying to define absolutes of right and wrong.
There isn’t any, most things aren’t black or white but a constantly shifting shade of grey. I always try to avoid statments such as “rules are rules” or “the laws the law and must be obeyed” because in reality it’s never that simple.

I think we could be looking at another Tory-Lib Dem coalition

I don’t see this for several reasons:

The last Tory-LD coalition didn’t end well for the LDs and they won’t want to repeat the experience; I suspect it wouldn’t be popular with the LD membership either,
The LDs are very pro Europe and the Tories are very anti, which, let’s face it, is what the election is going to be fought on
The LDs have gone (centre) left under Farron and the Tories have gone right under May; very different to Cameron and Clegg
Greg Mulholland has said on Twitter they won’t go into coalition with anyone
There was a feeling last time round that a majority government was the only way to tackle the financial crisis, hence the coalition; this isn’t the case now

I don’t see them going into coalition with Labour either; confidence and supply, maybe

People lying on their mortgage applications is fraud. That brought down Northern Rock and Halifax Bank of Scotland

apparently you work in the finance sector and then say things like that
it is not even tenuous it is just a complete fabrication
Precise its securitisation model failed and there was a run on the bank.

Under the chairmanship of Matt Ridley, Northern Rock had a business plan which involved borrowing heavily in the UK and international money markets, extending mortgages to customers based on this funding, and then re-selling these mortgages on international capital markets, a process known as securitisation. In August 2007, when the global demand from investors for securitised mortgages was falling away, the lack of money raised by this means that Northern Rock became unable to repay loans from the money market. This problem had been anticipated by the financial markets, which drew greater attention to it. On 14 September 2007, the bank sought and received a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England, to replace funds it was unable to raise from the money market. This led to panic among individual depositors, who feared that their savings might not be available should Northern Rock go into receivership. The result was a bank run – the UK’s first in 150 years – where depositors lined up outside the bank to withdraw all of their savings as quickly as possible, particularly since everyone else was doing the same

Re: expenses prosecutions. The battle bus was sent very deliberately to very key swing constituencies. Those constituencies won with understandably small majorities. It will not take all that many voters to come out in protest of an unfair playing field for the lucky battle-bussed incumbent to lose their seat whatever the courts decide.
Not sure what the strategy will be for Labour in one of our local swing seats that is the subject of likely prosecution(s), but local tories were making “Nannie it’s not fair” squealing noises in the local press a week before the announcement of the GE.

…. also what do Lizzie Louden and Kate Perrier know that we don’t? 😯

@frankconway..Since you raise the point of mental health and want links .. here’s one for you.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mental-health-figures-depression-anxiety-children-tory-government-theresa-may-pledge-end-stigma-a7517531.html

Those people will have lost their houses and be prevented from getting a mortgage in future

The vast majority have suffered no consequences what-so-ever. Still in their houses. Those that have been foreclosed on will not have suffered a fraud conviction and “simply” have the defauit on their credit record.

@eden partly responsible for the murder of an MP is a bit strong. What by calling a Referendum ?

@kimbers we’ll comment on the manifesto when we see it. BTW guaranteeing no tax rises is daft, we should be increasing taxes to fund significant increases in the NHS budget, £25-30bn pa, for example.

@eden partly responsible for the murder of an MP is a bit strong. What by calling a Referendum ?

I think the way leave/Brexies conducted their campaign was partly to blame, so yes leave/Brexies have blood on their hands

julianwilson – Member
…. also what do Lizzie Louden and Kate Perrier know that we don’t?

both pro-leavers in denial about what the realities of Brexit look like ?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/21/leave-eu-under-investigation-over-eu-referendum-spending

the farage vehicle one that is under investigation

No comment on your work of fiction re Northern Rock jambers ?

YOU and facts eh

increasing taxes to fund the NHS !!

I thought the Leavers suggested giving an extra £350m a week from eu budget ? 😆

Exactly ^^^ we should be in line for tax cuts with the £350 million a week we will be saving following Brexit. Whether it goes on the NHS seems to be moot since this wasn’t a promise apparently. However, the actual saving to the taxpayer was very much implicit in the Brexit argument.

Frank, you asked for evidence, I provided evidence.
The Government admit to 61 deaths directly linked to welfare reforms, where as Callums list say 4000 could be welfare reforms being the major contributing factor, and a lot more, up to 81000 where benefits reforms were a in the mix of an already potent brew, such as your examples.

Not all are suicides, some in the government 61 deaths are the David Clapson type deaths, where sanctions lead to his electricity running out, ruining his insulin in the fridge, combined with the meagre contents edible in the now defunct fridge, a tin of fish if I recall. Found dead though keto acidosis with said tin of fish, a few teabags, and a stack of just completed CV’s by his body.

His sister has started a private prosecution against Ian Duncan Smith for corporate manslaughter, and I’m proud to have contributed financially to bring about that action.

https://www.crowdjustice.org/case/david-clapson/

One of my concerns at the time – and is still a concern – is how our service based economy can provide the opportunities which grads believe should be theirs when it’s clear that net jobs growth is not high enough to absorb these new entrants into the job market in the types of job many of them believe they should have (sense of entitlement?)

An unwanted side effect of this policy is that it opened the door to Unis charging tuition fees; the law of unintended consequences.

It could also be argued that (some) degrees have been devalued.

A far better long term view would have been to develop and seriously fund an industrial development policy with regional organisations coordinated at a national level and staffed by industry leaders.

Retail sales continue to fall, financial services organisations are making transition arrangements for post-brexit and uk manufacturing is becoming increasingly niche.

Nice and concise… agree with you on this.

Chris £350m a week is only £18bn pa, I want to give the NHS more than that.

As for welfare reforms what’s clear is that the £90bn per anum the Labour Government where spending more than they raised in taxes was totally unsustainable hence their election loss.

Coalition ? Nope, Tory landslide.

industrial development policy

Industry’s key cost is labour, we are a high cost country. We have no chance of catching up to say the Germans who have dominated high value manufacturing in part as they have an artifically weak currency in the euro.

Industry’s key cost is labour,

so we need a steady supply of immigrants then as our ageing population isnt gonna help with that?

90billion on welfare, and the lions share of that is paying housing benefits.
The way to control that is rent caps and affordable social housing, but how many times has Phillip Davies fillibustered debate for housing reform? Remind me again of the political allegiance of the Rentier class?

Jamba you really are the voice of doom aren’t you. Please say something both positive and realistic for a change.

(I agree about the Tory landslide by the way, but landslides either way are bad for the UK)

Ulysee – I thought the bulk of the welfare state went on pensioners

Pensions, in work benefits and housing benefit, I can think of easy ways if politically unpalatable to cut the bill of the last 2, I’d say the bill for the first needs to increase…

this is why May was so desperate to hold a GE that she broke her promise not to hold one

the wheels are falling off, brexies just hope its not till after the GE

seems like Murdoch is turning on the Maybot’s shitshow

Trump might be stupid but he know when he sees a bigger bit of cake.

The tories are either extremely confident (not surprisingly) and throwing out any policies they can so they don’t then have to stick to them or they are underestimating the impact the changes will have.

The foreign aid one was odd as a lot of people in this country are “charity begins at home” so although we should be keeping the budget (or even increasing it) the wiser government would have slipped it through and not shouted about it knowing that a lot of people struggle with it (especially when at the same time you are not protecting pensions and taking off tax and NI locks)

The vast majority have suffered no consequences what-so-ever. Still in their houses. Those that have been foreclosed on will not have suffered a fraud conviction and “simply” have the defauit on their credit record.

Well that’s good, I had no idea that not paying your mortgage had so little consequence – might knock mine on the head and save myself a few quid.

But Jambalaya, you said many times NHS should be part funded by people buying private médical insurance, like mutuelles in France.
Have you changed your mind ?

His principles are incredibly flexible. Sometimes less capable normal folk see this as him having broken his word and being a hypocrite.

He’s getting older and aware of the amount of use he’ll be making of the NHS soon.

Maybe

The tories are either extremely confident (not surprisingly) and throwing out any policies they can so they don’t then have to stick to them or they are underestimating the impact the changes will have.

Or maybe they don’t want to be in charge when Brexit really kicks in. They can throw the election, then when it all goes wrong say “that’s Labours fault for not negotiating well enough”.

I wonder how May will react when school teachers go on strike before the General election due to the cuts in school funding. The secondary school my boys attend are having to decide whether to increase class sizes to 45 and go to a four day week, or stop teaching Art, Languages, Drama and Technology. South Gloucester schools are being hammered in the so called Fair Funding For Schools. They’ll be two Tory MP’s voted out near me.

And we called George Osborne “Omnishambles”