Wes Tender

Show me where there is any indicaation at all that this is Conservative policy, let alone intended to be mandatory or visible. Perhaps the BBC's report of this candidate's reasoning will help you. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-england-32299433

This is just one Tory candidate making a proposal which she says has been misrepresented. As far as I'm aware, it is not a pledge in the Tory manifesto, much as I'm sure that the likes of you would like to make out that it is. I'm sure that you're in good company with many of the knee-jerk brigade who responded in the comments after the article. However, there does seem to be a lone voice among those comments, one who is a bit more thoughtful about some positive aspects of certain scenarios that this young lady was maybe thinking about when she made the suggestion.

Labour propped up by the Scottish Nationalists would indeed be scary. But what would the SNP's position be? Would they be hypocritically brazen enough to vote with Labour on solely English matters, when they have their own Parliament to decide their own affairs, but also wish to meddle in ours?

I don't really see the problem. Provided that the tenant has been paying their rent promptly without any problems over an extended period, (the sort of period that would entitle them to buy their property at a discount), then it can be reasoned that they have already established a precedent of being able to pay a mortgage of the similar monthly sum.

You seem to have overlooked the foul and abusive language. Pap just loves that in public places, provided that it is aimed at the Tories. Intimidating the electorate? It wasn't as if the minder threw a punch at the bloke like Prescott did, is it?

Ah! The missing word in both of those statements. How are they going to define that?

Really? Have I read this wrong?

It's currently a £325,000 threshold, where the average overall house price in the South East is £333,000. So when they pop their clogs, your average single houseowner will already have reached that threshold and will then pay 40% on anything else they own or have saved, having already paid taxes on most of their earnings through their working lives. But hey, they can afford it the rich bastards, so let's grab as much as we can from their children or relatives as after all, what have they done to earn it?

And I was responding to Pap's assertion about who would be p*ssed off by the Inheritance Tax. The "Mansion Tax brigade" is just an epithet, for those to the left of the political divide who believe that chasing your 0.5% of people mostly in London is the panacea to paying for all the public services. So that misunderstading aside, you don't dispute that the Inheritance Tax threshold is far too low and that it now encompasses large swathes of the middle classes? Whereas originally it was designed as the equivalent of yesteryear's Mansion Tax when Death Duties were first introduced in 1894, progressing on from former more minor taxes started in 1796 to hit the very wealthy. And do you support the principle that most people having paid taxes all through their working lives, should then be taxed on their accumulated wealth when they die?

If you care to read properly what I wrote, I never claimed that everybody who falls into the remit of the Inheritance Tax (Tax on dying) had accumulated their wealth through hard work. Therefore, I had not missed the mark on the overall thrust of my point, that the majority of those who fall victim to this iniquitous tax have accumulated that wealth through their hard work or intelligent investment. And most of them have already been taxed on it during their lives, meaning that that they are taxed again when they die. Shylock: Laughable for you to suggest that where Inheritance Tax is payable on any surplus to an estate at death of over just £325,000 that you conclude that this means just 0.5% of households, overwhelmingly in London. OK, where one spouse/partner dies before the other, their allowance can be transferred to their surviving partner/spouse, but even then an estate including property and other assets of that amount isn't that much. But what is ludicrous is the tax rate of 40% on the estate above that threshold where as I say, tax has often already been paid by most people on their earnings during their lifetimes. And when we're discussing Inheritance Tax, what has Council Tax got to do with anything? That is supposed to be collected towards financing the cost of the Council services, not some additional wealth tax.

It'll p*ss off people like you and the Mansion Tax brigade who despise anybody possessing things that they have worked hard to accumulate. Property prices have risen historically well ahead of inflation, so that vast areas of the country are affected by it because people own property in certain postcode areas. A tax originally introduced to milk the super rich and the landed gentry, is now caning large swathes of the middle classes and because the differential between the increase in property prices and inflation has not been successfully addressed for years, it now becomes harder for governments to do it, for fear of being accused by the left of favouring the rich.

Succinctly put.

I think that you'll find that to date 41 people voted Steve Davis MOTM, which puts him just behind Fonte. It's either 41 people who don't have a clue, or could it just be you who either has a problem with him, or just has too short an attention span to notice what he brings to the team? I suspect that he is one of the first names on the team sheet when fully fit.

The first half was one of the most boring, dour exchanges this season, right up there with West Brom. I didn't think for a moment that Bruce would have Hull park the bus and Koeman's team choice worried me, leaving Clyne out. As a result, we lacked width and speed in attack and Hull were closing us down and winning many of the midfield battles. It is fair to say that but for a couple of very good saves from Kelvin, Hull could have gone in at half time one or two goals ahead, or should it be that we really had to have scored in the first minute when Long was through one on one and that the whole complexion of that half would have changed. Instead, Long totally messed up the chance with his poor touch and the team grew nervous and out of sorts with that formation. But fortune had favoured us and thankfully Hull were not the team to exploit our weaknesses, so we had the opportunity to regroup and rethink how we would proceed in the second half. But we started the same formation, although it did gradually become a more cohesive unit. In the event a combination of incidents changed the game in our favour. Wanyama was booked for a very slight pull on one of their players and was harshly yellow-carded. Koeman decided to substitute him, whether to avoid the risk of a red, or to change tactically, I don't know. I had initially thought that with a defence in an unfamiliar formation, that it would add further risk replacing the beast Wanyama with the more lightweight Ward-Prowse, but he does add a bit more speed and guile to compensate. Long does what he does best in running into the box and drew the late tackle from Bruce Junior that was fairly adjudged as a penalty. I must confess nervousness as Ward-Prowse stepped up to the plate, but he dispatched it with aplomb to earn his first PL goal. That lead invigorated the team, who started to play with some belief. The usual cliche of a game of two halves was very apposite and we then saw the sort of display that we have become used to at St Mary's with good passing and movement frustrating the opposition who found it hard to get the ball as often. Mane was brought off for Tadic and we threatened in attack with more purpose. A smart pass from Schneiderlin, who had more opportunities to play further upfield, fed Pelle who had a simple chance to side-foot the ball into the net and thankfully there was no defender to stick out a leg, no brilliant save, or no post to hit. Pelle's relief and joy was palpable and now having scored for his country and his team, his confidence and belief will propel him into a rich vein of goals leading into the end of the season, where they will be sorely needed if we are to hold onto this position. Man of the match for me was Steve Davis for his usual tireless and unselfish workrate. He did miss a sitter, but if he was also a goal-scorer, he would be a vary valuable high-priced player indeed.But one only has to look at the variety of players who received a spread of nominations for MOTM to see that there were either several decent performances, or else there was little to choose between them in a very ordinary match. Results around us have favoured us these past couple of weeks, but had we gained the win at Everton that we deserved, we would be in fifth anyway, regardless of what Liverpool do tomorrow and five points above Spurs. At least it is in our hands to put clear water between us and Spurs in a fortnight.

Yes, but aintforever isn't getting any of it, that's the problem.

I agree with Whitey Grandad. But apparently we are not allowed to express an opinion like that without being accused of indulging in tribal politics, even though I suspect his and my recollections go back rather further than yours, so we ought to be able to arrive at an opinion based on our own experience, shouldn't we?

Sorry to hear that Badger. Hope that you find something else soon

Labour's submarines to replace Trident have just been leaked:-

As far as I'm aware, the coalition has spent above the 2% of GDP during its term that our NATO commitment stipulates should be our aim. In your assertion that the Tories will fail to meet this commitment figure, do you know something that we don't? Fallon firmly committed the Tories to 4 Trident submarines without the mealy-mouthed we will take the advice of the Admiralty line and if as is likely four will be required, then I don't see why there would be a problem in them stating that they also would commit to four boats -apart from the ticklish problem that they would have to be stationed at Faslane against the wishes of the SNP.

Did it make Labour look trustworthy? I suppose different people read the interview different ways depending on their political allegiances. With the benefit of the passing of a few days in which the detail will have been largely forgotten by most of the electorate, the over-riding impression will remain that Labour might potentially renege on their commitments to our Trident nuclear defensive capabilities if they need the support of the SNP in forming a government and that they did not come out and state categorically that the replacement nuclear submarine capability would remain at four boats.

What a ridiculous analogy, Shylock. The essence of Laffer's thinking is essentially correct, that there must come a point whereby the rate of taxation becomes so punitive that it then becomes counter-productive and the Exchequer loses out when people either find ways of avoiding paying it, or emigrate. I can understand aintforever holding such simplistic views because all rich bastards are c*nts in his opinion, so he is happy that they all should leave and take their filthy lucre with them, but I expected better from you.

You're probably the only person who knows what you're rabitting on about.

The Brown rate? Shame on you DH! Maggie Thatcher brought in the 40% rate, then in 2010 Labour raised it to 50%, before the coalition reduced it to 45% This quote from Laffer is interesting:-

I already made the case that when taxation becomes punitive, the super rich find ways not to pay it, either by finding offshore tax havens to stash it in, or by emigrating to countries with a more reasonable tax regime. If taxes were deemed to be fair, then we would not have the problem of the wealthy trying to avoid paying them. With a flat rate of tax, somebody earning twenty times the average wage, already pays more than twenty times the tax as a sum, because of the low earnings tax thresholds. At the 50% rate, they would be paying more than half of their earnings when taking into account other taxes paid additionally like VAT, Council Tax, etc and in addition there is Labour's proposed Mansion Tax, which would screw them still further. OK, still some way to go to the 83% rate which peaked with Labour under Wilson before Maggie Thatcher slashed it to a much more reasonable 40%, but despite the howls of anguish then about how the Tories were the party who only helped the rich, revenues to the Exchequer actually rose. This is the Laffer Curve in action and Labour really have not learned the lessons of history and still feel inclined to offer sound-bites which appeal to the more hard of thinking voters by labelling the wealth creators as the rich who should be squeezed until the pips squeak. By all means attempt to close the loopholes which allow the wealthy to take clever advice on how to avoid paying their tax and in my opinion there is no excuse for allowing the big corporations like Starbucks, Google and Amazon to operate here without paying their share of Corporation tax on their earnings over here, but it has to be accepted that if the tax rates become punitive, the result is going to become counter-productive at some point, because those wealth creators will take their money and their business elsewhere.

We are talking semantics here, Shylock. Red Ed obviously doesn't mean that everybody should pay taxes in the same way, as his sobriquet infers he is a leftie whose inclinations are not that everybody be treated equally, but that those who often earn much more through their own skills should be taxed punitively. I'm quite OK with the concept that Non-Doms pay the equivalent rate of tax here as everybody else on what they earn here, or on money they bring in from their wealth abroad. This is already quite tightly regulated by changes made in 2008. Where they cross the line for me is with their presumption that they should pay tax here on their Worldwide earnings.