What do you think now?

[technoman28]

I am wondering what people think now that the tories/lib dems are in and their plans are a bit clearer. Did you vote tory and now think it was a mistake? or is this what you expected?

Just so you know where I am coming from, I didn't vote tory, and I think that if all the cuts put more people out of work, they will have less money to spend, and become reliant on a benefit system that will not be able to cope because of the freezes thrust upon it. It may be a simplistic view and of course there are many other factors involved, but I can genuinely see the kind of public unrest that accompanied the last tory government (and to be fair, to a lesser extent the labour government).

It is very easy to create "jobs", simply allow supermarkets etc to open up new stores and create them. But what most people want is a career and that is harder to come by.

Everyone regardless of political colour has to accept that this government is in power and will make decisions that are going to hurt, they have their principles and are sticking with them, I am not one for rejecting anything the tories do purely because "they are the tories", but I think we need to know that if any of their proposals do not work, they are big enough to stand up and admit the fact and try something else.

I know this is a bit disjointed, but I am just putting down what comes into my head, and I am genuinely interested about what people think. Thankyou for reading this far.

 

[Kebabhead]

Not keen on the prposed increase in state pension age from 65 to 66

Still were not like France

 

[Sonic67]

I do wonder, if you like the coalition, how do we vote for it again?

 

[dazza74]

We've simply got to many people now, 8 million of working age not contributing anything and that will be added to once the public sector cuts kick in. I see the future as cutting benefits and when you've gone as far as you can in that direction you increase taxes on the working.

Idealistic but for me I'd look in the direction of trying to do a deal with Australia to ship some of our benefit claimants over there. I know it's quite a hostile place (outback etc) but they are not short of space their and you could probably build much cheaper homes.

 

[Kebabhead]

Idealistic but for me I'd look in the direction of trying to do a deal with Australia to ship some of our benefit claimants over there.

Sorry but whilst Australia may be part of our commonwealth they have their own Government and there is no way they would accept this

 

[technoman28]

The question is more if you voted tory, are you happy with the way things are and the measures that are being brought in?

If you voted lib/dem, are you happy that they are in a position to make some of the changes that they proposed?

If you voted labour, do you agree with any of the proposals and measures?

On the coalition debate, I see it as a bit of a marriage of conveniance, with rocky roads ahead, labour/lib may have been better long term for the libs, but they only really had one choice from the start.

 

[Rasczak]

I voted for the Conservatives for a few reasons:
- To ensure economic recovery
- To resolve the energy crisis
- To clamp down on Welfare expenditure
- To ensure renewel of Trident
- To see the introduction of the Supremacy Act

Broadly speaking the coalition is doing much of what I want - the budget was okay, welfare spending is being reigned in (a small way anyway) and Trident is being quietly renewed.

But what it a complete show stopper for me is the nuclear power issue - the decision to provide no public funding puts the building of such stations in grave danger. We need to recognise we have to develop a viable energy plan if we are to reduce our reliance on imported energy - something likely to become very expensive in the fuure. I see this decision as equally, if not more, damaging than what Brown did to the economy.

I am also disappointed with the lack of the promised UK Supremacy Act. Whilst pro-Europe myself, much of the UK isn't. This act could have walked the tightrope of public opinion by being in Europe but not visibly shunted around by Europe. Instead the anti-European feeling will continue to grow threatening our continued membership of the EU - something that could again have very grave consequences for the country.

Finally I am pretty appalled by the proposed changes to the constitution. Not the House of Lords reform - that is long overdue - and the reduction in MPs and even a referedum on voting reform is okay with me. But what I think is absurd is changing the rules for the dissolution of Parliament to 55% of MPs just to satisfy the vanity of Lib Dems.

All in all then I view this coalition as a dangerous beast - one that could serious harm Britain and her peoples interets for decades - and thus hope it dies a quick death in the months ahead.

 

[Kebabhead]

But what it a complete show stopper for me is the nuclear power issue - the decision to provide no public funding puts the building of such stations in grave danger. We need to recognise we have to develop a viable energy plan if we are to reduce our reliance on imported energy - something likely to become very expensive in the fuure. I see this decision as equally, if not more, damaging than what Brown did to the economy.

What did you expect we have no money to build these stations. The only way to do it would be to increase taxes a darn sight more than putting VAT up to 20%

 

[Rasczak]

What did you expect we have no money to build these stations. The only way to do it would be to increase taxes a darn sight more than putting VAT up to 20%

We'll have even less money in the future unless we start doing something - the country will be significantly poorer unless we resolve this issue. Even an assurance of future funding would be enough to stablise the project - but the coalition won't even do that. Enjoy your low energy bills now - they won't be anywhere near that in the future.

 

[Kebabhead]

We'll have even less money in the future unless we start doing something - the country will be significantly poorer unless we resolve this issue. Even an assurance of future funding would be enough to stablise the project - but the coalition won't even do that. Enjoy your low energy bills now - they won't be anywhere near that in the future.

Well the coalition could make a start by scrapping the 5% tax we pay

i'm more concerned about water shortages that have sprung to light on the news

 

[domtheone]

I think so far things have been ok, mildly positive perhaps.

Budget was not as radical/controversial as I expected and I was disappointed that there was no radical plans on savings/pensions.

Scrapping tax on interest earned on savings would be a start.

Fairly decent for business and it needs to be for the private sector to take on 500K+ public sector workers over the coming years.

The whole pension/peeps living longer/population growth thing needs much more of a radical programme, imo.

I always doubted (and still do) that I would see population control measures introduced in my lifetime but I think there's a small chance that in my lifetime (possibly 50 years left) we may see some China style measures in other parts of the world..

 

[LanceR]

We've simply got to many people now, 8 million of working age not contributing anything and that will be added to once the public sector cuts kick in. I see the future as cutting benefits and when you've gone as far as you can in that direction you increase taxes on the working.

Idealistic but for me I'd look in the direction of trying to do a deal with Australia to ship some of our benefit claimants over there. I know it's quite a hostile place (outback etc) but they are not short of space their and you could probably build much cheaper homes.

That is one of the funniest things I've read today..... You were joking right?

 

[andrew markwort]

Not keen on the prposed increase in state pension age from 65 to 66

Nobody is, but it has to be done, and indeed, should have been done years ago.

Many people don't realise that pensions are a twentieth century invention, and a pretty cynical one at that. When they were introduced in the 1900s, life expectancy (i.e. the age by which half a birth cohort had died) in the industrialised world was between 50 and 55, depending upon which country you looked at. To cut to the chase, this meant that well over half the population never reached pensionable age, and a high proportion of those that did were dead within a couple of years of drawing the pension. This made national insurance or its equivalent very popular with governments - - you could tax workers all their lives knowing that you would never pay out anything like what the workers had put into the fund in their NI contributions. The same went for private and company pension schemes. At the same time, pensions became very popular and seen as a right by the public. So for once you had that rare thing - a tax that was genuinely popular.

The trouble is that people then started living longer (actually, this isn't quite accurate - the key reason for longer life expectancy is that very few of us die these days of childhood and infectious diseases, but that's another story). So now, instead of bringing in a healthy profit, pensions became a liability. But at the same time, people clung on to the idea of retirement at sixty/sixty-five and a good pension like it was something our ancestors had enjoyed since the dawn of time. Any attempts to alter the pension industry immediately bring howls of wrath, the Little Englander press can be guaranteed to bang on about 'pensioners in the twilight of their lives' etc. What is miraculous is that successive governments have been able to keep even the paltry state pension going as long as it has. The pension in the 1900s was 5 shillings. In real terms that amounts to £100 today. The current pension is in the 90s, so it really hasn't dropped all that much. The reason why the pension now seems so inadequate is that there was b-all to buy in 1900 compared to today. That's why they pension seems so derisory in 2010.

But we cannot keep funding pensions as we have been doing - they were NEVER designed to keep us in cosy comfort for 30+ years, and arguably it's not good for people to be that inactive. Much better to gradually raise the retirement age (you can't do it all at once or you'd wreck employment prospects for school leavers) until it's in the 70s. People are still fully capable of most types of employment at that age. And jobs that are too physically demanding are ones that people in their sixties shouldn't be doing either, so the excuse that 'this will stop me doing my physically demanding job until I retire' just doesn't hold water, I'm afraid.

And all this should have been done years ago. Gerontologists [people who study ageing and old age] and economists have been going on about this for (literally) decades, but no government has had the guts to tackle it. I'm delighted that at last Cameron, Clegg et al have had the courage to do it.

Oh, and just to point one thing out - the proposed increases in pensionable age as set out in The Times today will mean I don't retire until I'm 69. So I'm not arguing the above out of vested interest! And even retiring at seventy, it will give me, based on my current remaining life expectancy calculations, about 19 years of retirement. I think that's still a pretty generous deal.

 

[Kebabhead]

When you ask the working youth of today, how many of them think about pensions/retirement.

And in today's consumerist society, saving is a thing of the past

 

[Deleted member 293381]

Ask any 30-year-old what they've done about retirement/pension.

 

[dazza74]

That is one of the funniest things I've read today..... You were joking right?

Yes

 

[LanceR]

Yes

 

[Pecker]

In answer to the OP, so far so good, but in reality it's far too early to say.

As I've said many times, most of the differences are pretty subtle. The Conservatives are starting to pay a bit more of the debt off a bit earlier. For obvious reasons this is primarily a good thing, unless of course it halts the recovery. Whichever course the government took there were risks.

The main thing I'm watching for is political and electoral reform. It'll be interesting to see what happens there.

Steve W