Conservative Manifesto

Just watching C4 news - Jon Snow made the point that some of these ludicrous unfunded bribes promises are just being made so they can be traded when the inevitable coalition negotiations start. And BTW I thought the use of the word zealot was cheap - IMO those of us who are left of centre tend to be much more thoughtful, considered and certainly better informed than those on the right

So many points on here. I will just start anywhere.
A thought has occured. May be it has been said elsewhere.
Could they be thinking to raise £8 billion, by selling off parts of the NHS first? And then using that money to put it into the rest of it?

Owners of the Daily Fail are non doms as well. x

Just going out so can't stop to debate enjoy the evening ladies and gents if there are any on this thread!!

No right to buy in Scotland from 2016. Sensible lot the Scotts. Go Nicola! x

Mollie, I bet you cannot find an article in the Telegraph to criticise the Tory manifesto. Could be because the owners are non-doms.

Jane, there was only 1% difference.

‘Right to Buy’ was deliberately not extended to Housing Association tenants by the Thatcher government. As a House of Commons briefing note explains:

“The rationale for exempting assured tenants from the ‘Right to Buy’ is based on the need for associations to provide security for private lenders. If these tenants were able to buy their homes, the value of an association’s asset base would gradually be eroded and their rental stream reduced; it was recognised that, in turn, this would make lenders cautious about backing them.”

In an attempt to allay fears about the impact on Housing Association balance sheets, the taxpayer rather than the association will pay for the discount to tenants under the Tories’ proposed scheme. Did you hear that, private tenants?

Your taxes will be used to subside a relatively small number of tenants who are already in secure, affordable accommodation to obtain a very valuable asset. Meanwhile you’ll have to carry on paying sky-high market rents for a highly insecure one-year tenancy. Does that sound fair?"

Even Thatcher would not extend right to buy to HA tenants.
Jane10, tax payers will be paying for right to buy HA tenants to buy their houses, giving some over £100,000 subsidy.
Your children will be paying for it.

Re where are those who would defend 'the indefensible' the GN voting intention survey is interesting -plenty of Tory voters among us. Maybe we're the ones who don't tend to get involved in forum flare ups re politics just quietly vote our own way?

enjoy
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11536108/Election-2015-The-15-worst-sentences-from-the-Labour-Party-manifesto.html

have any of you read the Labour manifesto to compare

I fear for the social unrest that these measures might bring, if they come to pass.

It's happened before, throughout history and could happen again. You can only push people so far. x

whitewave it was mostly because I have so little faith in any of the parties but the Tories looked least likely to build up debt for the GCs to have to pay. Also I really want to see the economy being built up.

Anyone think this is fair?

nhap.org/nha-co-leader-standing-against-cameron-prevented-from-challenging-pm-over-nhs-at-local-hustings/

What swung it for you Jane?

Yoohoo I'm here! I've read the manifestos -all the jam tomorrow promised by all the parties, taken them all with massive pinches of salt and plan, this time, and for the first time to vote Tory. There I've said it. Sits back and awaits opprobrium!

Wishing they hadn't started this?

This is just as worrying, doing away with the human rights act.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/04/14/cameron-hints-at-civil-liberties-crack-down-after-election

I do not see how he can call himself on the side of the workers at the same time as he is saying he will do this.

This argument is getting a bit one sided - where are those who would defend the indefensible?

"The abiding sense of Conservative personality is that of irresponsibility. They have no sense of long term or common good. Their only ideas are short term electoral solutions, targeting a key group of voters to the detriment of everyone else. It's there in Help to Buy, in cuts for upper rate tax payers, in the married couples' tax allowance. Right to Buy is faintly more depressing because it isn't even original. It is a desperate gaze back to the good old days, like a sentimental old man getting misty-eyed over the love life he had in his twenties."

If you want to read the rest of this article, it's on www.politics.co.uk

My husband was an architect, too, GillT. He designed housing for housing associations. He would be appalled by this suggestion. It was bad enough selling off council housing and not allowing the councils to replace them.
Who actually pays the amount the buyers will save? Not the government; the taxpayers again, whether council tax or income tax. it's not the government's money to give away.

My BP is rising by the day, and soars every time I see DC's smug face and hear the latest pronouncement. I've just been listening to some very worried and upset people with severe disabilities on the local news describing how their lives will change beyond measure when they lose their entitlement to the Independent Living Fund payment in June. What sort of a country are we that we can't take care of our most vulnerable people?

There is durhamjen but not to be used in polite company. I dont think I have ever been so angry about anything in the political arena in my life, and I get riled up easily. Then no doubt the voters who think this is a great idea will be whining when their children and grandchildren cant afford anywhere to live.

I AM CROSS!!!

By the way, where have all the Tory supporters gone?

Whitewave, there isn't a word for them.

Mishap agree with everything you say. I also wonder about the legality of selling off Housing Associations stock? My husband is an architect and knows a fair bit about housing legislation and planning laws. Quite rightly, when a development is built, a certain percentage have to be given to the local council, usually via a housing authority to be allocated to those on the waiting list. These houses are bought on a loan, not given by the developers. This loan is funded by you and me, taxpayers. Housing associations have charitable status, the whole thing is a buggers muddle of inept desperate thinking and I for one am deeply deeply offended that a group of people who are hoping to run this economy in the future think I am so stupid as to believe this pack of lies and delusional thinking, and thus vote for them. This is apart from the shocking fact that they just havent learnt from the past, and cannot foresee the housing crisis getting even more desperate. There will soon be no teachers or doctors or police working in London at this rate, these houses will likely end up like the council housing stock sold off by that bloody woman, the houses will be sold on, rented out and we, the mugs, will pay our taxes over to pay housing benefit to landlords. And thus it goes on like some farcical play. Honestly, you couldnt make it up. Signed, the usual suspects.

The more I look at what was said this morning by DC and cohorts about the "working families" and the sunny uplands the more I realize how contemptuous they are of the working families with the expectation that they will be taken in hook line and sinker. They need their vote in order to get even a chance of a majority.