Ex Lion Tamer

Surprised more people aren't worried about Victor, he's been immense this season and probably ready to step up to a bigger club. This big question is whether we have learnt from last summer and will put our foot down if he asks to leave

This article is completely right and exposes the nonsense that the tories have been spouting for the last five years. The lib dems are still saying we could have been Greece, it's infuriating!

So why did you bring up all that nonsense about the winter of discontent, Healey, Red Robbo etc?

Just imagine what the conservatives could have been if they weren't held back by the lib dems? Their promised spending cuts for the next parliament give you a clue. The 2010 intake in particular are zealous small state thatcherites that would go places she never dared

The difference is that labour has got more moderate, whereas the tories are now actually more right wing

The big issue that none of our politicians are taking about at the moment is that the NHS in England is facing a funding shortfall of up to £54bn by 2021-22. Even if planned efficiency measures are successful, then this will only be reduced to at best around £30bn. Our ageing population is changing everything. We either need to accept paying more tax to fund a free health service or accept radical changes.

What other conclusion are we supposed to draw from what you wrote?

First I have to look up the word indolent, and now feckless, seriously guys, this is hard work!

So just to be clear, you genuinely think that everyone living in poverty is in that situation because they are lazy?

But if I've understood right, corporation tax means companies only pay when they've made a profit and can therefore afford it, whereas business rates weigh down small businesses and startups because you have to pay it regardless of how well you're doing. Plus I'm not convinced a slightly lower corporation tax offers any extra incentive to invest or work hard. More profit is more profit at the end of the day, regardless of how much it is taxed

Has this been posted yet? It's a bit easier than the one that was doing the rounds a while ago http://election2015.votematch.org/ I got 86% green, 75% labour, which means I'm more left wing than I thought

How good would it be if we could find another James Beattie though

Forgive me but you'll have to help me here. Surely it is better to cut business rates in that case?

Well labour is pledging to cancel the Tories' corporation tax cut and use the money to cut business rates for small companies, so that is actually more targeted at the people you are concerned about. I hope you take that into account during your detailed and open minded deliberations [emoji4]

But the letter isn't from them, it's from a bunch of big business fatcats

The fact that we're all discussing it suggests it is news. But the reason it is news is because some naive people will take it seriously rather than because it is something anyone should take seriously

3/10 poor effort [emoji20]

It only took me 5 minutes of reading to find out that Labour made the railways pledge at a time when it thought the tories were only going to privatise half of railtrack. When it turned out that they privatised the whole of it, Gordon Brown successfully argued within the party that the 2bn cost of buying it back was too high. The party has genuinely changed, no one wants to go back to the Michael Foot days, and although thatcher's reforms went too fast without a proper safety net, she did win a lot of the arguments and Labour will never go back to 1970s style socialism

Show leadership, be a trusted, important voice in negotiations

Is that why Hollande and Merkel went to Russia for the recent crisis talks with Putin while Cameron stood isolated on the sidelines as usual? In fact, when was the last time Cameron did anything useful on foreign policy? All he has achieved is isolating us from the rest of Europe http://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/7fe5f3f0-ae03-11e4-919e-00144feab7de.html

There seems to be a disconnect between what you think the Labour Party is and what it actually is. It no longer believes in the socialist utopia, it's a moderate social democratic party. The Tories, on the other hand, still believe in their small state utopia, and that's why they're much more dangerous

It is true that many on the left are pretty hypocritical when it comes to not being willing to change their buying habits, myself included to a fair degree. The trouble is that purchase decisions are so rooted in habit and routine that it's rarely a truly rational decision. The info is all there if anyone wants to help make a difference: http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides.aspx

Listed companies have a responsibility to their shareholders to make as much profit as possible, so you can say it's immoral all you like, but really company bosses have little choice. After all, how can any retailer compete with Amazon unless they adopt the same methods? A question to you all - do you know where your pension is invested? You are probably contributing to the problem in your role as a shareholder. Ultimately we need to pressure our governments to tighten the rules, but there is also personal responsibility. How many of us complain about tax avoidance but then still buy from amazon? Tax avoidance by individuals is a bit different and less defensible, but unfortunately it's human nature that people will convince themselves that things that are in their personal interest are actually OK. The onus here is on us as voters to pressure governments to tighten to the rules, as human nature will never change

But how do you set up a system that punishes the idlers without accidentally hurting vulnerable people? Any rule you lay down will have unintended consequences and when you're taking away people's ability to live and eat it's a very dangerous game to play. Cant you imagine how soul destroying it is for essentially well meaning people to have to make application after application, receiving rejection after rejection, in a marketplace where there simply aren't enough jobs for everyone that needs one? It's inevitable that some people on benefits with barely any disposable income find they have no joy in their lives, get ground down by the enforced application treadmill, and make bad decisions like missing appointments. They then suffer sanctions that actually make it harder for them to turn things round. The mistake that right wingers make again and again is thinking that because they themselves have made sensible rational decisions in their lives then everyone else can and should. The reality is more complicated - people do illogical, dumb things, often with tragic consequences, especially if they are young, haven't had a stable upbringing or have undiagnosed mental health issues

You said that people need to be encouraged to get jobs, within the context of a discussion about benefit sanctions. That surely means you think sanctions are necessary because otherwise people won't try hard enough to get a job?