The Greens are coming! Quick, panic!

We believe that the Government’s projections for GDP growth are too high, and that tax receipts on existing policies in 2013 will be only £603bn (item 7 above), £14bn less than the Government’s assumed £617bn (item 2 above).

Gosh, next they’ll be saying that George Osborne failed to meet his promises on deficit reduction…

Nope. Sorry. Still not getting the whole centralisation thing at all there Wopster. Could you just highlight me the bits you’ve noticed, and maybe expand on that a bit. Maybe explain to us how you beloved right wingers aren’t centralisers of the economy? Given the actions of successive governments?

GO!

F- it. Give them a go for five years. The other lot(s) have had the last hundred or so.

This really ought to cover it.

If you are trying to achieve something and you fail with a given method, you try an alternative one, right?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

yes, but people are scared because the stakes are so high

The best education system in Europe is Finland and they don’t have private schools.

We can have 20 kids per class in our state schools, people have to be prepared to pay for it though. Electoral history would suggest they are not.

Are you suggesting that the Greens would centralise the economy further than labour and the tories who, over the last 30 years, have turned us into the most centralised economy in the developed world, to the total detriment of everyone outside a privileged few in London and the south east?

@binners you win today’s award for “most sweeping generalisation” 🙂

By the way income disparity is greater regionally in Italy AFAIK plus it’s a free country so move to London and enjoy these privileges you speak of

AlexSimon- Pale Blue Dot. The Earth will still turn, the sun will continue to be at the centre of our solar system and we’ll still all be dead in 50 or so years, making all the petty squabbling over land and oil and money and resources pointless. None of it matters. Give the Greens a go 😀

Jambalaya – it may be a generalisation, but is it true? We have such a completely unbalanced, centralised economy that is now so out of kilter, its not even benefitting the vast majority of the people in London any more.

Good fun if you’re a Russian Oligarch though

@binners you win today’s award for “most sweeping generalisation”

The Green party is as religious as any actual religion.

“Introduce the new higher rate of income tax at 50% for incomes above £100,000,”

They don’t seem to even realise that the CURRENT marginal rate of tax at £100K to £120K is 62%.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10682583/Should-headteachers-pay-a-62pc-tax-rate.html

and “We believe that the Government’s projections for GDP growth are too high, and that tax receipts on existing policies in 2013 will be only £603bn (item 7 above), £14bn less than the Government’s assumed £617bn (item 2 above)“

so the current lot were out by 3% on their forecast, but much closer than nearly all leading economists and the IMF… what exactly was the green’s forecast in the same period?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10884632/Do-I-have-to-go-on-my-knees-grovelling-apology-from-IMF-head-for-incorrect-warnings-on-UK-economy.html

kayla1 – Ha, indeed.
For the record, I’ve voted Green at every available opportunity since I was allowed to vote (1990), but then I’m a certified lefty tree-hugging vegan.
What’s interesting, is that people who aren’t lefty tree-hugging vegans are also considering voting for them.

move to London and enjoy these privileges you speak of

Yeah, that’s easy, right?

Also, some people are ideologically opposed to the centralisation of prosperity. I’d rank myself among them, binners may-well* be, too.

*I have my suspicions, but I don’t want to put words into mouths.

They don’t seem to even realise that the CURRENT marginal rate of tax at £100K to £120K is 62%.

was it when they wrote their 2010 manifesto?

AlexSimon- I sort of gathered that from your post but wasn’t 100% sure!

For what it’s worth, I voted LD at the last General Election and Green at the local council elections. Unfotunately I live in the 12th safest Labour seat where people seem to vote historically and are figuratively stuck fighting the Miners’ strike.

Out of curiosity, are the people who appear to be ‘anti’ Green in relatively well paid/high stress jobs they have to commute to?

Jambalaya – it may be a generalisation, but is it true? We have such a completely unbalanced, centralised economy that is now so out of kilter, its not even benefitting the vast majority of the people in London any more.

Good fun if you’re a Russian Oligarch though
Well IMO not really. We have a service lead economy overly focused on financial services but one which actually pays a disproportionately large amount of the bills for the rest of the country, ie its for their benefit more than London/SE. London is attracting increasing numbers of people both from outside the UK and from the rest of the country, it must be doing something right. London is packed full of cheap social housing by the way, I doubt there is a nicer place in the UK to live in a council house.

You can fix your oligarch inequality issue by having them all pack up and leave but that actually helps pretty much no one.

Aside from the completely nutty policies, of which there are legion, how the F are they going to fund all that when they’ve managed the economy into negative growth?……………

What’s interesting, is that people who aren’t lefty tree-hugging vegans are also considering voting for them

Yeah right! Come the moment of putting their X in the box……they’ll come to their senses!

What’s interesting, is that people who aren’t lefty tree-hugging vegans are also considering voting for them.

Some of us are considering standing for them.

They don’t seem to even realise that the CURRENT marginal rate of tax at £100K to £120K is 62%.

was it when they wrote their 2010 manifesto?

The change was announced around April 2009 and effective April 2010. They certainly had time to get any implications of it in their manifesto.

Some of us are considering standing for them.

In sandals?

I’m looking forward to Mike “Supporting local communities to choose their own transition path, to become more self-reliant, reflecting local history, ecological profile and needs.”

I assume it means that n+1 no longer applies and we are all going to be using Cargo bikes 😉

In sandals?

Sadly, I don’t own any sandals.

I assume it means that n+1 no longer applies and we are all going to be using Cargo bikes

I sold my cargo bike 🙂

In many ways I admire their forward thinking and brave policies, and may vote for the Green candidate in my local constituency simply because I would have voted Lib Dem in the past.

However, until they decide to ditch the truly mad policies like homeopathy on the NHS and the banning of water fluoridation they cannot be taken seriously.

Yet despite various (illegal/immoral) wars/incursions and expenses scandals the general public continue to take the status quo seriously…

until they decide to ditch the truly mad policies like homeopathy on the NHS and the banning of water fluoridation they cannot be taken seriously.

I suspect that more out there policies will disappear from their manifesto as they grow in membership.

we are all going to be using Cargo bikes

we can only hope

It’s funny watching the right of centre folk get in a tizzy..

Like spoilt kids who’ve been told they can’t have any sweets cos they’ve been naughty 😆

If you are trying to achieve something and you fail with a given method, you try an alternative one, right?

What’s failed? Capitalism? That thing that took Europe out of the dark ages, into an age of food security, better health, clean water and better education?

Oh but, because the planets climate might change a little bit – nothing that adaptable humans cannot cope with, suddenly the sky is falling down on everything we stand for and we now need to cast around for some wild new idea that may or may not work.

“It will make full-time paid employment less necessary, and will encourage home-based and part-time employment, and work in the ‘third sector’. People will be able to choose their own working lifestyles”

Yeah, right. 🙄
Show me how that little utopia is gonna work, then.
It certainly wouldn’t help me, considering the strict security I have to work under, which is, in fact, dictated by the third sector which is our client base.
One of those third sector clients who we’ve been working hard to win came round today to check how tight all our security precautions are, which include any visitor being chaperoned by a member of staff should they need to go to the loo, or other part of the building.
Our company is directly involved in the raising of tens, hundreds of millions of pounds for these clients, just how that could be managed by home-based or part-time workers I’m not sure. (Having said that, we do use a fair number of agency staff, essentially because the volume of work varies dramatically through the course of the year).

Based on what I have read they won’t get my vote.

I can’t be bothered to plough through that lot but

a) Why the hell would fee paying schools paying tax cause the destruction of the country? Are you somehow insisting fee paying schools produce all the clever people? Because **** off

b) Managed decline wouldn’t lead to job losses. Unmanaged decline would. The clue is in the ‘managed’ part. How do they do that? I don’t know.. but the current government are just threatening to fire people willy nilly so I can’t imagine it’d be much worse than that.

It certainly wouldn’t help me

So because it doens’t help you, it can’t help anyone? That right? 🙄

molgrips – Member

a) Why the hell would fee paying schools paying tax cause the destruction of the country?

In the same way that demanding other profitmaking companies pay tax has caused the destruction of all companies.

b) Managed decline wouldn’t lead to job losses. Unmanaged decline would. The clue is in the ‘managed’ part. How do they do that? I don’t know.. but the current government are just threatening to fire people willy nilly so I can’t imagine it’d be much worse than that.

If you aimed to have no job losses, it means growth and job creation would have to follow the rate of population decline, which means it would take centuries at the current immigration and birth rate. And even longer with their proposed immigration policies.

Not that I am against immigration, it’s just the greens are morons.

I… but… <sigh> 🙁

it means growth and job creation would have to follow the rate of population decline,

No, it means we’d all work less or for less money. Deflation.

It’d be a trick if they could pull it off, mind. Simply allowing job loss is no kind of management at all, thereby not meeting their policy objectives.

They want to shrink the economy ie reduce consumption, without increasing joblessness. Afaik that’s what’s been happening the last few years anyway – jobless down, economy flat.

Why the hell would fee paying schools paying tax cause the destruction of the country?

it won’t. It will just put more pressure on the state sector as people stop paying the fee’s and schools close. This obviously will also be assisted by the complete removal of all restrictions on immigration.

funnily enough someone on the radio this morning commented that the reduction in people taking private health insurance in the recession had increased the pressure on the NHS

Are you somehow insisting fee paying schools produce all the clever people?

my wife insists she is cleverer than me 😉

No, it means we’d all work less or for less money. Deflation.

Good point, although I don’t see how they could manage this long term without risking a significant recession at some point and redundancies in the private sector.

At the end of the day, Asia won’t go down this route and neither will the US. We would just see a brain drain of the best and brightest leave the country to earn a lot more elsewhere.

Most people don’t give a shit about the planet even when educated properly, so you have to frame environmental issues within a paradigm that takes this into account. Whenever I think about this, I can only see further technological development as the way round our problems. Other ideas are simply a waste of brain power as human society as a whole will never be co-opted to follow them.

it won’t. It will just put more pressure on the state sector as people stop paying the fee’s and schools close.

Corporation tax is paid on profit, no? So all that would happen is that those profiting would make less profit..? Encouraging investment back into the school rather than money making?

Flaperon – Member

truly mad policies like homeopathy on the NHS

Caroline Bennett: “I absolutely do not believe that homeopathy works as they describe it. However, what I do believe in is the placebo effect… The way I think homeopathy ‘works’ is as a placebo. And I think there is a very small and limited place on the NHS for homeopathy…”

Which makes them, er, as mad as the current government. Homeopathy on the NHS eh?

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx#available