I genuinely wouldn't know who to vote for now. Maybe it's time for a new Guy Fawkes (a more successful one). Clear the lot out and start again. Mind you there are still plenty of public schoolboys with an over inflated sense of entitlement out there, we will never run out of those. The party they join depends on how wet or dry they are 1. had your lunch money stolen, know your place, bullied mercilessly, fagging for the big boys but still an arrogant little S4h!t with a superiority complex over the masses - LibDem: 2. cardigan, in a band, smoke a bit of weed, Daddy a bit of a leftie, not allowed into any secret societies, Labour: 3. stole lunch money, had a fag, regularly vomit on an underling after consuming too much champagne and fois gras, wear rediculous Voctorian era clothes, member of secret society, Tory.

As above - If there was an election tomorrow, I would not vote, simple as, and that would be for the first time in the 26 years I've been eligible to do so.

The Tories are rotten to the core, always have been, always will be.... The Lib Dems are just useless chancers - They know they are a pointless minority, an irritant on the political landscape, yet are constantly looking for a way to wheedle themselves into some sort of power, even being prepared to sell all their principles so as to being able to cosy up with whoever is in power..... As for Labour - For a party that should be the voice of those in the most peril from such an uncaring government, they are totally inept... Ed Milliband is hopeless. The majority of his shadow cabinet are equally awful - I don't know a single one of them who appeals in the slightest to me.

We all know that Tony Blair wasn't the messiah that many of his initial worshippers hoped he would be, but UK politics desperately needs somebody of his charisma to bring some vision and hope back to the political scene.... Democracy is slowly dying in this country, simply because the public don't care any more about charisma-free monotones offering nothing fresh or nothing that offers any hope to the vast majority.

The last thing I want to see, after Camoron and Blair is someone with "charisma", I'd far rather see some policies that will help address the growing inequality in this country. Both Cameron and Blair hads charisma, what they both lacked was an ability to resist the neoliberalism that now blights the developed world, where the market is seen as everything and service is a dirty word. It's high time neoliberalism was shown up for what it is: an expectation to privatise profits, knowing full well that the state will cover any losses. The banks are but the prime example.

So stuff charisma, give me substance

What really grinds is when its nigh on impossible to vote for the party that used to be important and meant something to you growing up.
I haven't been able to vote for my party, the Labour Party, for many many years.

And now a Tory think tank has come up with the idea of only paying benefits for the first two children. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12 ... ref=topbar This coming from the same guy who claimed on expenses to heat his stables. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11 ... 50907.html

And now a Tory think tank has come up with the idea of only paying benefits for the first two children. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12 ... ref=topbar This coming from the same guy who claimed on expenses to heat his stables. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11 ... 50907.html

We need to find a way to reverse the stigmatisation of accepting the benefits of a welfare state, especially as the vast majority of the population are indeed recipients of that state.

I was born four years after the creation of the welfare state. Born in a dedicated maternity hospital with all the available care in reach if required, instead of born in my mother's bed iwth the only "experienced" care coming "Betty down the street" because my mam & dad couldn't afford to pay a doctor's and/or midwife's bill.

I benefited from free (at the point of delivery), healthcare and schooling. My mother never received any family allowance for me because it was only paid for second and subsequent children. I left school at sixteen and from the following April paid income tax and NI without grumble or complaint because I knew that the state would use my contributions to look after me in my dotage. Unfortunately now I'm reaching pensionable age, I find that the state has reneged on that promise, I'll need to keep on working just to simply subsist. All my contributions to basic NI, SERPS, various company and private schemes will amount to around 4/5ths of buggerall.

The only thing austerity has brought is more misery for the less well-off in order to create ever more wealth for those who didn't need the money anyway. A determined, as opposed to the half-a[ir[/ised window dressing, exercise in tackling tax avoidance and evasion would result in no need for austerity. Concentrating on tackling "benefit fraud" while basically ignoring tax evasion and avoidance is peverse but just about sums up what the tories are, always have been and always will be about.

It will be 'worse' under Labour. www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... es-welfare The welfare state has ballooned to a ridiculous size over the last decade. It's much harder to shrink it than expand it. Thankfully all major parties recognised that it needs to be smaller.

It will be 'worse' under Labour. www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... es-welfare The welfare state has ballooned to a ridiculous size over the last decade. It's much harder to shrink it than expand it. Thankfully all major parties recognised that it needs to be smaller.

Maybe it's a result of Cameron's recent visit to China and he was so impressed with China's "one child policy"?

Interesting to note that MPs are allowed to claim up to rl£2,425 per dependent child simply for visiting.rl

rlZahawi's They Work for You pagerl

You mean apart from the tax agreement thing with Switzerland that the coalition started in January this year? Still, it never quite brought in the £3bn projected, just less than £1bn I think the figures show. Which is still £1bn more than anyone thought would be recouped. Perhaps those on benefits are squirreling away their hard earned in Geneva.

The Lichrenstein Disclosure Facility has generated several times the £1 billion originally forecast. To be fair to the coalition they have done more to counter tax evasion than Labour did.

This is true but the new IT system that identifies irregularities in tax payments and/or earnings declared is based on a "best guess" and throws up some nightmare stories - my brother for instance has had the bailiffs calling at his house on several occasions chasing an imaginary tax boll of £2000, yes HMRC have sold a debt of £2000 to a private collection agency who get given short shrift each time they call because he does not owe the money at all, but HMRC's new software had guestimated that he perhaps does.

In August after two years of protracted phone calls and chasing nameless faceless individuals around the country to try and get an answer he presented himself at our local tax office at a pre-arranged appointment to sort it all out, after twenty minutes discussion he was told that his appointment was concluded, not that they had concluded the matter, just that they were only allowed to discuss individuals matters for twenty minutes - he refused to leave until they had reached an agreement.

Eventually after a manager got involved they finally got to the bottom of the £2000 tax bill - they thought he was still a company director even though they had been informed five years ago that he wasn't and had been filling in the correct employee (company car) assessments ever since - his total tax liability to them was £56.

I don't know how he kept his temper in there but he insisted that they got the payments section on the phone there and then and he paid the £56 on a debit card and bade them a good day - I have no doubt whatsoever that there are probably tens of thousands like him that owe nothing like the amounts that their fabulous new computer software guestimates - if they feed it shoite then thats what it spits out.