UK General Election 2015 | Conservatives win with an overall majority
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Surely they know that no one is going to care what they say? They're not exactly the most popular group in the world. Are they trying to help Labour or are just so incredibly out of touch they don't realise that poor people can vote now?
As an asthmatic non-smoker who frequents his local pub the ban is a bloody god-send. Most smokers I know accept the reasoning behind it even if it is an irritation. It doesn't surprise me that Farage is against it, he's clearly no great shakes at putting himself in other peoples' shoes.
Decent tool: http://election.awedience.com/
Compare how the candidates in your constituency are using twitter. Can see which words come up the most, i.e. if they're mostly just using empty platitudes, or what sort of discussions they're having. Enjoyed seeing that the Labour candidate in my area's most used words were things like 'Walthamstow' (constituency), 'Women' and 'Campaign', compared to the Conservative candidate's top words of 'Labour', 'Ed' and 'Miliband'.
Nice site, shame that only the Labour and Green candidate in my constituency uses Twitter. "Labour", "great", "Miliband", "today", "people" and various names for the constituency are the Labour candidate's most used words, while "people", "Green", "great", "tax" and various names for the constituency are the Green candidate's most used words.
As for my old constituency:
Labour: "surgery", "advice", "advice surgery", "Runcorn", "today", "Widnes", "30", "great" and his email address
Conservative: "Boston", "great", "Osborne", "campaign", "sign up" and "online"
Wondered what the Boston and sign up stuff was about, so looked and this is it:
Lib Dems: "great", "time", "book", "good", "BBC", "excellent", "ideas", "reading", "teachers"
UKIP: Not on twitter
Green: Not on twitter
A candidate promoting 'hidemyass'
A complete ass if I may say if he is promoting copyright infringement. Is he still a candidate? Has he got any chance of winning?
Which settles the matter. By your definition 'deserving to live somewhere' simply means anyone who has the ability to do it. So the drug using council tenant at the beginning of this conversation deserves to live in Kensington just as much as the lottery winner, the rich kid and Jippy.
Firstly, he'd already been jailed for drug offences but reoffended and was still rehoused in the same street he ran is original crack den from. Second, we need more houses and agreed the rules need discretion, particularly when disabled people or those needing specialist equipment etc...are concerned. And third, I never mentioned anyone 'deserving' to live here or there. I merely posited that council resources might be better allocated than rehousing repeat druggie offenders in £400-500k flats. They could arguably sell that and buy two cheaper properties, thereby being able to house more people.
Yep. The fact over 45% of the poll respondents above are voting Labour or Green is kind of indicative of the fact that this forum is hardly representative of the national vote.It's about councils misallocating resources.
Actually what you said was "You can understand why people who work fecking hard to afford a flat down this street are pissed off when some druggie jailbird is housed for free at the taxpayers' expense though?" The point being that if its working hard we're talking about, what about the rich people who live there who didn't lift a finger to be able to afford it? Or the people that work hard but will never be able to live there? Because if working hard is the criteria, seems to me that a lot of people in that bit of London shouldn't be there.
As for selling properties, why would the council sell an asset as valuable as that and risk it on a construction programme? Much better to borrow against the value of it, build one new one and keep the original.
Erm if you've changed your tune then yeah it can be about that, but from what everyone gathered form your posts you were complaining that jailbird a druggie was being housed on your street in a £400k+ flat with people who worked hard to be able to afford owning a flat there.
Oh and how many flats can you buy in Chelsea & Kensington if you sold yours?
This can also bring us back to the old debate about you not caring much about what happened as long as you enjoyed your cosy home and holidays, here's a jailbird druggie to mess that up
Yeah he is, and no he doesn't stand a chance. Derek Twigg (Labour) has been the MP for that constituency since 1997.
Paying your own way is a big part of it, but as part of this there is the issue of whether the council is best served by maintaining a very expensive property portfolio to house the local jailbird druggies when this could be sold to raise a lot of money which could fund more wide-scale housing projects.
As for the working hard bit- I know I'm never going to be able to live in Mayfair or wherever but accept I'll have to live within my means, compromising on location. Others don't have to because the state will support them.
Hammersmith & Fulham is the borough, the article is getting confused about W14 which straddles Kensington as well. The amount raised won't buy you a lot in H&F, but it would house an entire family, if not two, elsewhere in the borough rather than just this sole bloke.Erm if you've changed your tune then yeah it can be about that, but from what everyone gathered form your posts you were complaining that jailbird a druggie was being housed on your street in a £400k+ flat with people who worked hard to be able to afford owning a flat there.
Oh and how many flats can you buy in Chelsea & Kensington if you sold yours?
This can also bring us back to the old debate about you not caring much about what happened as long as you enjoyed your cosy home and holidays, here's a jailbird druggie to mess that up
I haven't changed my tune, just expanded on my argument and yeah I want a comfortable life, who doesn't? This bloke is certainly getting one with a nice flat given to him gratis.
Perhaps we could reallocate them to a slum? Or a ghetto of some sort? Somewhere away from decent places.
The whole tabloid practice of focusing on what the property would theoretically be worth if it was on the market is so disingenuous. As if Councils go around deliberately buying lavish half mil penthouses to piss of the hard working, when you know full well that they're merely in possession of properties they likely have been for decades, long before you've moved near to one, that just happen to be in areas that have become significantly more pricey. Something that's affected pretty much all of London, and continues to do so. The idea that they should be obligated to sell them off once they've reached a certain level of value is counter productive. Especially as that "value" is relative, and 400k for a house in West London is hardly high end. This guy's obviously living such a comfortable life he still needs to be a drug dealer.
But lets say we do that, and move council tennants into two 200k houses, which would necessarily be in a further out, less connected, less desirable area. What happens when that area gets gentrified, and the property prices rise again? Do we do it again? And move them further out and further out until they actually are all in some kind of ghetto on the outskirts and only the rich can afford to live anywhere within the M25? What happens to the wealth gap then? Not to mention families and communities with ties to those areas. Would you move to Notting Hill and then complain about the Carnival? 'Cos it's the kind of attitude that'll see it eventually become a parade of middle class white women selling boho gemstone jewlery to American tourists.
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Alex has been writing Cameron's team talk for him:
On your first part, as I explained, the council would be crazy for selling off an asset that's probably rising in value higher than any other investment they could possibly make.
On your second point, why is it okay for an honest hardworking family living on the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth to live alongside jailbird druggies but its not okay for you, just because your house is worth more? Because the value of your house gives you extra rights that they don't deserve?
His point is valid in a hypothetical meritocracy, where the wealth any individual accumulates is a direct reflection of how hard they work. The hardest working people will become the most wealthy, so get to live in a nice area surrounded by other similarly hard-working people. The wasters will have less money and ending up living where they "deserve", in some shit-hole estate, surrounded by other wasters.
It falls apart in the real world, though, where there's often a big disconnect between wealth and hard work. In K&C specifically, you actually get a hell of a lot of druggie wasters who are extremely wealthy. Trustafarians and the like. They make shit neighbours too. I used to live above a couple of extremely well spoken young blokes who had massive all night parties in their gaff every weekend. Linford Christie's illegitimate son would have probably been a better neighbour.
Alex Salmond needs to win his seat first then think of what to write for Labour or whoever. Lib Dems currently hold it with a 6k majority and Labour are running a child while urging their supporters to vote Lib Dem as the incumbent is resigning.
"This footage will shock you"
Supposedly they don't want to repeal it. They want to change it so that pubs (for example) have the choice as to whether to allow smoking or not. Not a fan of UKIP and hate smoking; but allowing people to choose between a smoking pub and a none smoking pub seems perfectly normal. If 30 people all want to smoke in a certain pub then fair play to them, I'll just ensure I stay away from that pub.
They have had the houses since they were built in 1890 for all I know and I'm not advocating slums.
Of course my interest is selfish and not in keeping with socialist ideals, but you have to admit it creates distortions whereby the likes of this jailbird chances on a home that most working folk will never be able to attain. For that to cause resentment is not that surprising really.
I know social housing, through quirks of house price inflation, is now littered throughout expensive areas. But it's just something we have to ignore and get on with life I guess.
Of course I understand why councils, which are probably straining under the weight of housing requests, want to keep their stock. My (somewhat flimsy) argument still stands. You can incentivise developers to regenerate brownfield sites for example. These need not be outside the M25 and can be quite central, such was the case with the Olympic village. Get boarded up houses back in decent condition etc...There are loads of empty properties all over the place that will be more cost-effective to rennovate than building new homes.
As for rehousing offenders, it's difficult, obviously. Am sure even the most diehard left wing among you wouldn't be holding a street party to welcome a repeat sex offender or rapist into your street.
I live in H&F not K&C! I'm no lover of trustafarians either but thankfully my area is too downmarket for them. They probably think we are all druggie jailbirds here.
Appreciate the meritocracy argument is holed below the water but you'd like to think that the work you put in and the debt you took on to get there are rewarded by more than living cheek by jowl with a crack den. Such is life I guess.
Salmond's probably trolling to an extent, but he's fairly likely to win the seat. The Lib Dems large majority doesn't really count for much when they're facing a wipeout across Scotland, have lost a massive amount of their support, and are in a similar situation to other constituencies in that their large majorities are being cut back by the SNP.
That's not to say it's a guaranteed win for Salmond - not at all, but Orkney and Shetlands is the only seat that the Lib Dems will be feeling very confident about retaining in Scotland.
If you spout obnoxious right-wing drivel you deserve all the patronising and ridiculing you get, this isn't Boodle's you know.
Cameron having a complete nightmare on BBC Radio 1. Being ripped apart by teenagers.
Whoooosh
In which policy areas?
Been catching up on these debates and why on earth are the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru even there? Just wasting screen time imo, everyone knows none of them have a realistic chance of winning a lot of votes. The majority of the questions should have been answered by the leaders who have an actual chance of winning.
Cameron demanded it. Besides, the SNP are going to have more seats than UKIP.
Yeah I should have left the SNP out, their leader is actually on a role right now.
Equal rights, coalition, young voters, VAT, feminisim, living wage etc
Half an hour of roasting. It should be on iPlayer soon.
He cocked up big time saying that if charging VAT on tampons was up to me I'd change it tomorrow
He cocked up big time saying that if charging VAT on tampons was up to me I'd change it tomorrow
Equal rights, coalition, young voters, VAT, feminisim, living wage etc
Half an hour of roasting. It should be on iPlayer soon.
He cocked up big time saying that if charging VAT on tampons was up to me I'd change it tomorrow
Cameron is on the ropes full stop. He is coming across poorly IMO. I saw him on the Sunday politics getting quite annoyed with the interviewer. He has seemed surly all the way through this process.
I thought Marr gave him a rough ride (the fanny). Labour should reverse the Tory failed strategy and go for 'Dave the posh wanker'.
This is why he didn't want a debate against Ed. Can you imagine if a bunch of teens had him on the run what a politician will do to him? He is dreading BBC QT probably.
The funny thing is that they all jumped and said do it, you're prime minister and then he started saying some bullshit about EU wide-policy on tampon VAT which would have fuelled even more UKIP-ers and even Tories listening to go vote UKIP.
If you ignore the social experiment aspect you have to concede that if the council sell the valuable property and can buy one or two extra places then they can help more families.
What's more important in housing policy, housing more people or pissing off toffs like Jippy?
Stopping inner London social cleansing.
BTW Jippy isn't a toff, he's a jumped-up herbert.
Salmond's fairly certain to win in Gordon at this point, barring a major collapse in the SNP surge.
As for the social housing debate - not sure if anyone saw the Panorama the other day about the kind of housing some people are forced to live in that are on housing benefit yet were paying absurd rents to the private landlords, I'd certainly rather they could be housed in a 400k property already owned by the government. Better for the taxpayer, better for society. We unquestionably need to build more houses, and flogging them off in the 80s without replacing them for a short term boost in revenues and votes has lead to the current mess.
As for the social housing debate - not sure if anyone saw the Panorama the other day about the kind of housing some people are forced to live in that are on housing benefit yet were paying absurd rents to the private landlords, I'd certainly rather they could be housed in a 400k property already owned by the government. Better for the taxpayer, better for society. We unquestionably need to build more houses, and flogging them off in the 80s without replacing them for a short term boost in revenues and votes has lead to the current mess.
I think that battle has already been lost. I've seen pics of Jippy with a monocle...that's good enough.