British Politics Thread.

[CoffeeGrunt]

If I were an impassive, third party Johnny Foreigner type, I'd love to see Labour and Conservatives shack up together like the world's most dysfunctional, forced couple, it'd be somewhat hilarious.

Sadly I don't want to deal with the crap that would entail, though...

[Mr Mystery]

Has there ever been such a coalition? Not party specific, but first and second place (because UK elections are as predictable as the Scottish Premiership before Rangers sank) forming up together?

[Psychosplodge]

During the war I believe was uttered this morning on the radio discussing it...

[Al Shut]

You'd probably get the worst of both parties, combined with a nagging feeling that it doesn't matter who you vote for and that the whole system is rigged from the get go.

And I say that as someone living under a grand coalition.

[grimmas]

Fine but you're still not showing anything Undemocratic going on, well other than the wholly undemocratic act of forming a coalition government, you've just put a list of reasons for why
you'd like something to happen, and that isn't the same thing. The fact remains If one votes for a party that isn't going to win then that isn't going to happen. You say geography isn't important but I notice you aren't mentioning that the Greens won't be entering into coalitions or that Labour won't be entering a coalition with UKIP (they don't have to say it, they won't) and it is central to The SNPs restricted appeal.


No one is being ignored if you don't get enough votes you can't expect to form the government, and if the reason for you not getting enough votes is your own restrictive policies then that's your fault. The further more the SNP is not the defacto voice of all Scottish people it's just the choice of SOME Scottish people (they have 65 out of 129 seats In the Scottish assembly) and it remains to be seen how many seats they will win in the General election, may be they will win all 59 but the situation you claim does not exist ( they changed the number of Scottish seats in 2005 I believe)


The real reason labour say they won't enter a coalition with them is that Labour need to maintain their hold over Scottish seats to have any chance of gaining power, if they lose seats to SNP a coalition won't help them as that will only put them back where they started. Far from suggesting those vote don't matter they are actually saying they really do matter. In fact almost all past Labour governments wouldn't have been elected without their Scottish seats. Think about that and link it with SNPs prime policy of Scottish independence, a collation with the SNP would destroy Labour as a party, they'll be in for one term and then never again. They simply cannot afford a coalition with the SNP. In terms of actually increasing their seats the only party that would gain from a coalition with the SNP (if they increase their seats) is the Tories as they won't be losing any seats in the process. Why do you think the Better together campaign was run byScottish Labour Party MP.


Come on are you really surprised the Two main political parties don't want to work with a party who's expressed intention is breaking up the union.


Of course we are talking about politicians here who's to say labour won't change their minds when the votes are counted in May.

[Mr Mystery]

Anyways, moving on....

Budget Day today folks, potentially Little Georgie Osborne's last one ever.

Rumours are changes to savings tax (welcome) and online realtime tax stuff for the self employed - no opinion on this as I'm PAYE.

What I hope? Another extension to our tax free lump sum (goes to £10,500 as of April anyways), and a cut or at least freeze of Beer Duty. That would be nice and put more money in my skyrocket,

[Psychosplodge]

I don't think we'll see a giveaway, trying to buy votes labour style would undermine the deficit reduction. But I think we'll probably see a freeze on most stuff and possibly a further increase in the tax allowance or whatever its called like you say. Beyond that I'm confident I shouldn't be worse off like after everytime Brown did one...

[Mr Mystery]

I've done well the past few, but was never in a position for previous budgets to really affect me enough to garner my attention.

If I'm right in thinking, Lib Dems were wanting the tax free sum to be £12,000, and even Osborne was keen to see those on minimum wage pay no tax on that rate. Not sure anyone could object to that.

[Psychosplodge]

One particularly sticks in mind, they scrapped the ten pence rate and not only wiped out my payrise but left me worse off as well, at the same time as putting about 4p on a litre of fuel and beer. It might not be a lot but at the time I was particularly poorly paid and well labour are supposed to be helping the poorly paid employed aren't they? Before and after that I was always technically worse off as duties went up but never in such an obviously noticeable manner.

I agree I don't think people on minimum wage should be paying income tax.

[Mr Mystery]

BBC reckons a basic allowance of £11,000 will be announced,

But if memory serves, previous raises were higher than predicted?