There May Be Trouble Ahead [For Cameron]

[Essex Lad]

planeterotica wrote:


> Could this be the start of the poll tax riots again? I don't
> think call me Dave's honeymoon period will be lasting too long...

No.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Somebody needs to explain the concept of winning and losing to Labour. You lost. You can have another go in 2020. Hiring a few anarchist thugs will only harden the hard working, tax paying, non-benefit claiming right wingers resolve.

[max_tranmere]

The pundits are all comparing Cameron's slim majority to the slim one Major had in the 1990's and saying that because Major had a lot of problems getting bills through the House, and other problems too, then Cameron will have similar ones. I think this is different though: the Major government in the 90's was one of the most unpopular government's ever, they shouldn't really have won the 1992 Election as they were very unpopular prior to that, but they did because people disliked Kinnock more and because The Sun newspaper came out very strongly in favour of the Tories on Election day (see the link below). They won, we had the ERM fiasco, no one resigned over it, taxes went up, interest rates went up, the recession deepened, some ministers were corrupt - and then there was Europe. The 92-97 parliament involved a party most people hated. At least Cameron is reasonably popular.

[number 6]

Popular with who?? I don't know anyone who likes him. Labour lost because of a weak leader and the constant scare stories of Sturgeon running a Labour minority govt. Once the pain of the next five years kicks in it will take a tremendous effort from the tory media to save them then. Labour need a decent leader though.

[RoddersUK]

There are too many Benefits, all introduced by the Labour Party.
As far as I am concerned Benefits should be to help people who are in genuine hardship, not for some workshy arsehole and illegal immegrants.
No, I didn't vote for the idiot Millibore.

[sparky]

Saying ' working people should not get benefits ' would be fair if their nett take home income was a genuine living wage. The problem is the UK has lost so many jobs in this category with the decline in industry / manufacturing since the 1970's while many of the jobs created e.g. distribution and shop work as a result of 7-day opening and longer hours, even if genuinely full time, are paying far less.

The living wage of ?9.15 / hr in the London area and ?7.85 / hr elsewhere may be just enough for one person in a house share or rented bed-sit but is a long away short of the amount that will keep a partner and two children, this requires the second person to be working at least near to full time which creates many issues as well as incurring costs. If the second person was only working < 16 hours a week to put some jam on the bread and butter it would free up a full time job for someone currently unemployed. Even if the previously unemployed person paid no tax this would reduce if not eliminate the payout in benefits to them.

I'm sure the benefits system could be reformed to reduce the administration costs, however key point is regardless of the number of benefits and the pot they directly come from the total amount required for a basic living is still the same and ultimately the shortfall between this and nett earned income still has to come from taxation.

[jackdore]

There will be a lot of trouble ahead for Cameron, not from the far left, but because he's just a slick public relations man with nothing to offer but meaningless slogans about 'hard-working families' and 'British values' whatever they are. In fact Britain itself is rapidly falling apart under his watch. He's going to come under terrific strain over the EU negotiations. There's still plenty of mugs willing to fall for his divide and rule tactics that the unemployed are to blame for everything, but how much longer can he get away with this? He talks about uniting the country, but he will fail, because he leads a party stuffed with second-raters, governing on behalf of factional interests. And no, I don't reckon much to Labour either.

[Essex Lad]

That's true up to a point but I bet the vast majority of people on the "minimum wage" have X boxes and Playstations and iPhones though...