Voting quandry

Nikki she does indeed avoid answering questions but that's hardly an uncommon trait in politicians!

Nikki I agree re (un)reliability of polls. But I think Labour will lose by a big margin

I am free of my voting quandry , I don't care , this after sixty years of caring , this time I have no trust in any of them and certaintly no hope

Osborne has benefited from austerity, Fitzy, and his mate Cameron.

Apparently Blair has been telling all Labour supporters that there will be no problem voting Labour as Corbyn will never become PM.
So that's your quandary sorted.

How have they benefited DJ?
So Blair salves his conscience by telling himself he can vote for a government he doesn't want because it won't win!

Blair did not say that, could we have the truth please ?

Blair said - if the polls are right Theresa May will win the election, I will vote labour

news.sky.com/story/ge2017-tony-blair-says-theresa-may-will-win-the-general-election-10852628

I do think the media has enormous influence over people's opinions. (They think so too - remember "It's The Sun what won it"?) The Mail, for instance, has been pushing for years the idea that migrants are either running the country down or blowing it up, and that benefit claimants live a life of luxury. (They should try it sometime...) Now they're doing a very successful hatchet job on Corbyn.

I don't think it is particularly extreme leftism to believe in prioritising the NHS, improving the carers' allowance, increasing the minimum wage to £10 p.h., requiring all rented accommodation to be fit for human habitation, banning zero hours contracts, and so on. Even if I wasn't a socialist, I would vote Labour to protect the triple lock, because I am a pensioner! Do we want to go back to the days of old people dying of the cold because they are forced to choose between buying food and keeping warm?

I would be ashamed to vote for a party which intends to fund anything by taking away allowances from bereaved parents, cutting the benefits of disabled people and obliging women to not only admit but to prove that their child was the result of rape. What a sickening bunch they really are.

Sorry, Fitzy, are you asking how Cameron and Osborne have benefited?
They introduced austerity, then when they lost the power to do so, went round the world giving talks on austerity.
Making a million pounds giving talks on austerity seems to me to be benefiting from it.

I'd call it benefiting from being known to be important past UK politicians. Cos, after all, if they hadn't done austerity they'd have done something else that they could have talked about. Tony Blair has made a mint out of doing speeches too.

Bluecat most people believe Labour will spend more money than we can afford. It's as simple as that. They don't need the Sun to tell them. As to the triple lock, I imagine you were very vociferous in your support of the Tories when they introduced it?
DJ - I can't see that you have really tried to answer my question at all.

William Hague has been doing the speech circuit for years, I have been told he is an excellent speech maker

Can we afford to pay back £500 billion ? Will our g grandchildren be lumbered with it, our grandchildren will be

I tried to answer your question, Fitzy. You just don't believe the answer.

I do believe it. But it's clearly irrelevant spin. No more relevant to the point I was getting at than any other example of a politician making money from lectures etc.

We have an excellent Conservative MP here but I cannot vote conservative so last time I wrote that on my ballot paper that "for the first time I feel disenfranchised-I want to vote for current MP but certainly not his party and although would love a good opposition I don't feel we have one at present and no point in my area voting labour in any event".
I cannot just NOT vote though.
I understand/hope candidates read all spoiled papers.

"I have to say that of all the Tories I have had meddling with my life and making it harder, George Osborne is without peer in terms of how much I hate and resent this creature.

He makes Nero look like a great statesman.

In more enlightened times he would have been prosecuted for his cruelty and his destruction of Government and national wealth.

Had he been a CEO of a company he would have been let go by the board.

To paraphrase Chrissie Hyde – had he been in the SS in ’43 he would have been arrested for cruelty.

When I found out that he was being paid to be make speeches about his ideas I thought that this was the final insult and that maybe there is no such thing as justice in the world at the moment."

On taxresearch

touchstoneblog.org.uk/2016/10/q-george-osborne-borrow-four-times-said/

Osaborne has ruined the economy by borrowing four times as much as he said he would, all on the back of austerity.
He has then given up his job and gone on the after-dinner speech circuit, making speeches about austerity. Therefore he has made money out of austerity.
It can't be clearer. It's not just out of lectures. It's out of our austerity, not his.

"had he been in the SS in ’43 he would have been arrested for cruelty."

Sigh

Well DJ, O'Donnell will outdo Osborne in terms of borrowing by a country mile so you had better not vote for him

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/11/25/austerity-is-dreadful-now-is-the-time-for-post-austerity-economics/

McDonnell. Strange how people who don't like him can never spell his name correctly.

McDonnell believes in PQE, creating money and giving it to the builders and workers, so it stays in the economy.
Osborne gave it to the moneymen, who salted it offshore in tax havens, so it never made any difference to the GDP.

DJ - you have no idea who invested in those bonds. Certainly huge amounts will have been loaned by UK pension schemes as insurance companies to back UK pension liabilities. As for PQE he is taking a huge gamble.