Lord Duckhunter

There are hardly any left that are open for new members. My Company closed it years ago and there's now talk of freezing your final salary benefits and putting us on a money purchase one now. Basically, giving you 1/60th of this years salary X the numbers of years worked, freeze this, and from this year onwards, put us into a defined benefits one.I understand that many Companies have done this, or are looking at this as an option.We have also had our contributation increased from 6% to 8% to receive the same benefits. There is no doubt that our fantastic private pension provisions that were the best in the world, have been ruined under this Govt's watch. My wife is a midwife and her pension is pretty much the same as mine, the difference however is that hers is still open for new members, as it is funded by the Taxpayer. With 85% of private Companies now no longer offering a final salary scheme I dont think it's right that 100% of employers in the public sector have the chance to join one. Historically, the pension provision has balanced out the low wages, but this is no longer the case. The public sector average pay is higher than the private. My wife has had decent pay rises, whilst I've had a pay freeze for 2 years.

I suspect that the Tory's are planning massive cuts and savings, at least I hope they are, but dont want to frighten the natives at this moment. Mrs Thatcher's '79 manifesto was short on detail and certainly didn't tell of the radical ideas to come. Personally, the sooner the debt is paid off the better. Why should my children and their children pay for our/Brown's binge. I'd start with public sector and their pensions in particular (this despite my Wife being a NHS midwife). Lets close the Final Salary scheme to new members, make them work until they're 65 like the rest of us. No child benefit or WFTC for higher rate tax payers. Let's cut the overseas aid budget in half, and let's get rid of all the "non jobs" that are advertised in the Guardian. Let's stop bribing the unions with millions for their "modernising", and let's cut parliament by 20%. Cut the Scottish and Welsh budgets, if they can afford to give free health care/priscriptions and university fees the Barnett formula is not working.

If high tax rates are the answer, why when Thatcher reduced them did tax take go up?

Before Mrs Thatcher the top rate of tax was 83% and the basic rate 33%. When she reduced the rates, the tax take went up. This is because higher taxes stiffle growth. It is better for people to have more money in their pockets than Govt. If you could convince me that higher taxes would lead to French standard public services, then I may change my mind, but whilst we have a wasteful Labour Govt, that gives the Unions millions to "modernise", that pay countless toerags benefits, and employ all the Diveristy experts and Lesbian stop smoking officers, I'll stay with my beliefs. Someone earning £66,000 a year can claim Child benefit, if that child is under one, he can also claim Working Family Tax Credit. A millionaire can use the NHS for free. If you want to take money from the rich to distribute to the poor, there are better ways of doing it than taxing people more. The problem is Labour WANT to tax people more, it plays well with their grassroots.

Interest rates are set by an independent BoE, not the Labour Govt. In fact this was the only decent thing Brown did as CoE. It was a move considered by Maggie Thatcher, but rejected as too right wing. It's funny how according to Labour, every Labour recession is a global one, whereas the 80's and 90's were Tory one's, and that after giving the BoE independence to set interest rates, they have kept them down .When interest rates go up, as they will need to in the next Parliament, they'll blame the Tory's if they're in power or if by some miracle Labour are still in, they'll say that the BoE sets them and not Govt. Which ever way you look at it, this Labour Govt has put tax up and run out of money. Same as every Labour Govt always does.

"he's done a lot to our advantage in Europe" Is that the same Europe that the Labour party wanted to withdraw from, although when that "belief" was rejected by the British people, they swiftly did an about turn. As for the "Eton Mess", this is what gets me about the Party of Ed Balls, Harriot Harmen, Peter Hain, Alistar Darling and Tony Blair, all of who went to fee paying schools. The party of Dianne Abbot that great leftie who sent her son to a fee paying school. They have sly little digs, and play the class warriors, but it's just another example of Labour's hypocrisy .

The Europe we joined and then voted to stay in was a Trade bloc. It was not a "Country" with it's own flag, anthem, currency and laws that over ride the sovereign state's.

My point was that people are having a pop at Dune for pigeonholing lefties, whilst doing the same themselves.

I can also remember before her reign. Income tax at a basic rate of 33%, Healy getting the IMF to bail us out and sandwiches and beer for the unions at number 10. The Labour party pre Mrs Thatcher was a completely different party than the one Gordon Brown runs.Widely held principles have been abandoned in a grab for power. If your beliefs have stayed the same since pre Thatcher , then I presume you'll be voting against Labour, the party of Id Cards, The Iraq War, cash for Honours and Lord Mandleson?

Where as the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation are all masons

You seem to want to hark back to the 70's, where we owned airlines and car companies, where the working man paid 33% income tax. The argument over state ownership is over, the Tory's won that one. Labour abandoned clause 4 and no serious party would ever go into an election with a policy of renationalisation.

Well Labour have had 13 years to renationalise, but haven't.

Labour have continued to sell off Playing fields and you seriously can't believe we should own BT and British Gas? Can you remember how long it used to take to get a phone installed?

I have people who work for me that turn down Overtime on the basis that it will affect their WFTC's. I have also had the situation where a guy turned down a promotion and a pay rise, because he would lose the same amount from his WFTC's. How can that be right? As an employer we were prepared to give him more money, but he was happier to collect the same amount from our taxes, rather than from a private company. As for the minimum wage, it was set at such a low level (delebrately so) that it didn't make much difference at all. It was an Elephant trap for the Tory's and a symbolic gesture rather than a meaningful attempt to increase peoples wealth. Had it been set at the rate the unions were calling for, it would have indeed cost jobs.

I dont think that anyone would argue against helping people in genuine need. However, nobody can deny that there are thousends of toerags, that can work but choose not to, that do work and still claim benefit, and that say they have no partner, but do have one. The welfare system in this Country needs a complete and utter overhaul. How can it be right that rich people are entittled to Child Benefit, and have you seen the upper limits for earnings on Working Family Tax Credits.The burden for paying for all this seems to fall more heavily on the normal working man. As for funding Cancer drugs, again the whole NHS system is broken. It should be there to fund your mother's drugs, but why should my taxes pay for sex change operations and the like. Welfare should be a safety net for those in trouble and in need, it shouldn't be a way of life, as it is for some.

Great in prinicple, but it doesn't work. If income Tax went up to 1979 levels society wouldn't be any fairer, it's just that more of our money would get wasted.

What a load of rubbish. UKIP have a legitimate agenda and should no way be compared to the BNP. They want withdrawal from Europe for every white, black, Asian, Chinese, lesbian, gay ect ect person in the UK. To compare them to the BNP is a disgraceful slur. They are the same as the Greens (only more popular) and yet the left wing biased media in this Country try and portray them as some sort of right wing loons. It wasn't so long ago that the Labour party, including Brown, campaigned on the back of leaving the EEC.

Why have UKIP and the BNP been lumped together on this thread. Nobody would lump The Greens in with the BNP, so why UKIP? Due to our First Past the Post system the BNP will not gain a seat at this election, neither will the Greens. UKIP may in the Speakers seat, but that's pretty doubtful (unfortunatly because he's a complete fool).However like the referundum Party, UKIP could do damage to the Tory vote, although they've said they wont stand against Tory's that share their view on Europe.

That's what Labour Govt's do, put tax up. They seem incapable of understanding that it's tax take that matters. The last Labour Govt taxed people at 33%, yet when Thatcher reduced the basic rate, the revenue from income tax increased. If you follow Brown's flawed logic, Thatcher would have been taking X amount of billions out of the economy. Take the NI increase.Business has said it will affect job creation, the Lib/Dems have said it is wrong, but wont change it yet,and even Darling has said it will cost jobs, but they are "managable". Those jobs will go to people who will have to pay income tax, if those jobs dont exist, then the income tax from those jobs wont exist.The people filling those jobs will remain on benefits, who pays for the benefits? Labour Govts seem to think that taxing people more, is the answer to everything.

The point was about PR, so the forthcoming elections will not tell us anything about PR. The last PR elections that were held show the level of Lib/Dem support under PR. Take away tactical voting and they fell to 13% and 4th.

UKIP came second, so they did better than "relatively well". You wont be able to tell about UKIP's level of support this time, because it's first past the post. Labour voters will vote Lib/Dem in Tory areas and visa versa. Take away tactical voting, and their share will fall, as it did it the last PR elections. The European PR Election results are fact, everything else is opinion.

On the subject of OWTS, I hate it being sung too slowly. I've heard Spurs on the telly singing it slowly and it sounds pretty good, but it seems to peter out at SMS. I prefer it sung faster.

Their vote in the PR European elections was pathetic, coming 4th behind a "pressure group". They got 13.7% of the PR vote as opposed to 22.1% in the last First past the post election. This is solely down to Torys in Labour areas and Labour voters in Tory areas.When every vote counts, people dont vote for them in the numbers they do in thye present system. They are political chancers, they change their views depending on which seast they are fighting. In Labour areas they are left wing and in Tory areas right wing.The facts are there to see, when there is a PR system, their share of the votes went down

We should have an English Parliament.Why should the English be treated differently than the rest of the UK?

Whilst there is first past the post, this will continue to be the case. It also allows them to play the victim with their 30% share of the vote. when PR is used, their share of the vote goes down. First past the post suits their agenda, PR would put them alongside the Greens and a long way behind UKIP. Their supporters will never admit it though.