You didn't answer my question, you never do. Answering a question with another question? Have a stab at responding to what was asked.

With the skills they have a garage owner contributes to the economy by buying parts from another business (not a public body) and therefore helps keep those people in employment. The garage owner then pays tax & NI to the Gov't that helps fund the services that are provided by the public sector.

So which bit of that are you struggling to accept?

Why does he not raise income tax then, and use it to fund a cut in employers' NI contributions. That would be the equivalent of a fiscal stimulus, providing a discount for employers to take on new workers. We are in a position where we need some demand side economics, the supply side is not the problem in terms of skilled workers, there are stacks of highly skilled people who have been made redundant in recent times and are struggling to get work because their sectors are in fear of hiring. Lets be honest the reason Labour put NI up, is because it doesn't have "tax" in the title. Even at a time when tax needs to go up, they are too afraid to raise the basic rate of income tax because they want to have the boast that Labour has had the "lowest basic rate of income tax ever".

To put this in context, the basic rate of income tax is currently 20%. In the first budget of Mrs Thatcher's government, Geoffrey Howe brought in a basic rate of 30%. Nigel Lawson cut that to 29% in 1986, 27% in 1987 and 25% in 1988. If the basic rate ever needs to go back up to 25% its now - and that would be a tax burden which would be widely shared, but shouldered by workers, not by employers.

Both parties are being misleading on this issue. Labour's claim that this 1% rise will "secure schools and hospitals" is garbage, it won't raise nearly enough money. They are going to need to cut schools and hospitals back severely unless they find another source of revenue, they have to pay enough interest on servicing the debt of the Private Finance Initiative loans they took out to build the schools and hospitals in the first place. The Conservatives are also attacking this as a "tax on jobs", which is true, but they haven't said what they are going to tax. I have not heard any concrete plans from the Conservatives on where they are going to raise the money to pay back the deficit?

too many soapboxes on here at the minute,i can't concentrate,i'm voting for tony smith anyway, he has led us successfully out of a very long recession.

sod politics...who's goin win the grand national,

god some people need to get there priorities right.

This overinflation of the HE sector has been one of the problems. How many graduates are unemployed today.....doing an academic degree is all very well but in many cases these working class kids have been mis-sold university, they are getting into debt to gain an education which isn't giving them any creditable skills. The problem with the snobbery against traditional working class industries, saying that people from those communities should be "given a chance" to be part of the chattering middle classes, is that we don't have the upcoming new labour force to fill trade jobs, hence us having to hire overseas labour from countries like Poland with high levels of trade skills.

Really a lot of the money that went in the direction of HE should have gone in the direction of FE, to fund kids to get skills which meet the needs of the economy, ie ones which will give them jobs and secure income.

As an example, on the government shortage skills list at the moment are welders, pipe fitters, line repairers, butchers, meat trimmers, skilled chefs, care workers, animators, AV equipment operators, we are appealing to immigrant labour to fill these vacancies, whilst there are however many History and Classics graduates loafing around on the dole competing for office admin jobs. If we were truly a classless society, we wouldn't scoff at those careers as being "working class", we'd fund skills training for the shortage areas of our economy, and give young people a chance to get skills which will help them get a trade and a career in life.

With the skills they have a hospital administrator contributes to the economy by buying supplies from another business (not a public body) and therefore helps keep those people in employment. The hospital administrator then pays tax and NI to the Gov't that helps fund the services that are provided for everybody.

More like Psychology and Media graduates.

Why should a working class (whatever that is) person not have just the same educational opportunities as a middle class person?

Why do we denigrate HE to the point where student is an insult when in other countries a far larger proportion of people go into higher education.

I also agree with you that more people should go into FE as well. The problem with this country is the anti-education tendencies of many. Which other country has a phrase like "too clever by half"?

Working class should have the same educational opportunities as kids from middle class backgrounds, I'm not saying that if you were working class you were barred from doing an academic degree and if you were middle class you were barred from getting a trade. The problem is the government decided that they wanted 50% of young people to go to university. Now that would be fine if the HE sector provided all of the skills training, but it doesn't, hence a lot of young people are graduating now and finding they can't get jobs, this applies to middle class as well as working class young people, but it hits the ones from poorer communities harder as they don't have the options which better off ones do, ie having their parents pay for them to do a Masters course, or doing an unpaid internship whilst their family supports them, to get a foot into the door. I don't view education from a class perspective I view it from a young-people-being-trained-up-to-be-the-supply-that-meets-the-demand perspective, its the policy makers who have viewed it on class lines by trying to make out academic degrees to be a superior form of education than skilled trades.

The 50% target was for 18 to 30 year olds, not just young people. A good number of those in Universities are doing teaching, nursing, social work and other vocational courses anyway.

There was a bit of a debate before between two Labour MPs in an almost empty House of Lords. And a tory MP had to be cut off by the speaker for going so far off topic.

Very Good. I think that's been used before though - anything fresh to offer?

Raising Income Tax rather than National Insurance would affect those who have retired and pay tax but not NI. So which is fairer, asking workers and employers for another 1% NI, or asking everybody, including those on fixed incomes, for another 1%?
Why have the Tory party now identified £6 billion efficiency savings when, only recently, they derided the Government's own efficiency savings as fantasy?
George Osborne says he has no plans to raise VAT.
I remember another Tory chancellor saying exactly the same thing years ago, and then doubled VAT.
Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true!

Bolton West looks like a tight seat

I think this thread requires an idiot's guide to politics, so that folk can get a more simple way of finding out what they can expect from the 2 main parties, rather than all this serious debate, which while enthrallinmg for some of us, may be a tad tedious for others.

So here goes my best attempt....

LABOUR - Most of the time their hearts are in the right place, wanting to please everybody and trying to right the wrongs of previous generations...However, this ultimately can be their downfall, as by attempting to do this, they just seem to alienate the masses, who see them as a bunch of liberal do-gooders.....Their re-building of thousands of decaying schools has been a fantastic acheivement. Critics will claim that this spending is part of the reason we are in such a financial mess, but the mess the Tories had left this sector in was absolutely scandalous, and in my eyes this rebuilding programme has been an unqualified success....On the downside, their most obvious mistake has been immigration, which while not the mess that the Daily Mail would have us believe, is very close to a fiasco, with massive under estimation of numbers being the most startling error.

CONSERVATIVE - The party for business....Or in other words, the party for the rich, the Tories are like that craggy old dog that looks all harmless, until you let it get too close and then it bites your hand off. They are actually a clever bunch, but they spend far too much time making sure that those who vote against them suffer for daring to do this.....Just remember, this is the party that claims to be wanting to fix our broken society, whilst failing to mention that during their last reign, the Emperess Thatcher destroyed communities the country over, all because of a petty squabble with a man called Arthur Scargill, thus sparking the 'broken' society we are now burdened with.

Hope this simple guide might help some out there....Feel free to ask any questions....

What about Clause IV and Blair's continuation of the centre-right Thatcher idealogy?