buctootim

Ive remembered why I cant stand Michael Gove.

Disagree. Ive met him through work , very clever conviction politician, not just an operator.

Didnt Thatcher win her second election despite the polls indicating Labour under Kinnock. The post mortem decided that people were embarrassed to admit to a pollster that they had voted for her. Maybe there is an element of that this time.

Ed has got to go now.

Ive not met many people torn between the LDs and UKIP!

Perhaps he bought his council flat

?

I thought you were in your 30s and your kids were small

Thats my bet - 10 seats more than Tories

She's watching the Washing Up channel

edit.

Says the man who only has £90,000 equity in a £600,000 house and has a buy to let similarly bought with money he doesnt have.

Hitler?

That and short-termism - a "who cares if it turns sour next year, I'd have got my bonus and moved on to Credit Suisse / Deutche Bank / Barclays etc by then".

You might be right, I havent looked into them recently. The damage is done and it doesnt really matter, for me, what the PR team come out with. I used to go there and now use Costa. Of course. Its all set out here quite neatly http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/us-britain-starbucks-tax-idUSBRE89E0EX20121015 Its also notable that the number of directly managed stores is declining and 'licensed' stores is increasing. I wonder why they are doing that... http://www.statista.com/statistics/218388/number-of-starbucks-stores-in-the-uk/

There is the famous (you can google) case where the UK arm was pleading poverty and how impossible it was to make a profit while Starbucks Inc's annual report boasted of the rude health and profitability of the UK arm. Their trick is paying inter company franchise fees - which amazingly enough add up to exactly what their profits would otherwise have been. But I suspect you knew that.

Then why did the banks pay so many fines for mis-selling? The problem has been that the banks creation of toxic derivatives has been a massive exercise in wealth destruction. The banks got bailed out, the governments retrieved some of the bailout money through fines - but the people who caused the crash the CEO and board members largely escaped scot free. The only people who have really lost out are the taxpayers and the people with pension funds, ie most of us. There should have been far more criminal prosecutions, and of board members, not just isolated traders. The problem was systemic, not isolated rogues on the dealing floor.

I guess it depends on whether she's on the bus or not.

"Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed". George Soros

I hope (unlikely though it is) that they hold the balance of power after the election. There are plenty of good green policies to choose from. I used to know a lot of green activists and without exception they are the most principled politicos Ive ever met - they really lived and believed what they preached. Some of the fudamentalism and idealism is too whacky - but its refreshing to have a moral and conviction driven approach to politics

Not really. Massively leveraging up balance sheets, betting on synthetic derivatives, selling PPI to people who didnt need it, fixing LIBOR. Iceland has it about right. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/02/13/uk-iceland-bankers-idUKKBN0LH0OC20150213 Going after the bankers wouldn't have solved the problem but it would have at least introduced a modicum of feeling of equity to the poor taxpayers left cleaning up and still paying now.

If you increased corporation tax and reduced employers NI so that the change was tax neutral for businesses, but an incentive to employ more people, surely that would be a good thing?

Im off to vote though Im not sure why - one of the safest seats in the country.

Im with Eric http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=reverse+cowboy

Thats a very selective list which leaves out big big areas of expenditure like pensions. If you cut by 7% across the board instead of having sacred cows you would get to £50bn. That said if the UK economy grows by 2.5% pa over the next five years its will add £200bn. With government tax take of around 36% that is another £72bn by doing nothing - much preferable to plunging us back into recession by taking too much money out of the economy too quickly.