The budget

[beag_teeets]

Election will be May 6th now...

 

 

It has been going to be that date for a number of years. Gordon always was going to cling on for as long as he can then why spend the money having 2 elections when the locals were already on that date anyway.

[leeslover]

I doubt you will see a major shift in price paid by the customer. More like a squeeze on the smaller suppliers doing the good stuff. While the big boys absorb the costs.

I doubt the suppliers of the cheapest Superfux brands will have anywhere much to go on margin, it's already as price sensitive as you can get as the sale, volume and brand are entirely dependant on how much the tramp has begged or the student found down the back of his couch It won't trouble the affluent drinker, as my former boss said when they raised wine by £0.14 a bottle, "if they think an extra 42p a day is going to make me change my behaviour they've got another thing coming."

[rudemedic]

You know the country is in the when the traditional pre-election tax cuts on stuff like cigs, booze and petrol doesn't happen. Having a minimum price for booze could be a good thing but it isn't going to affect those with money. If its 50p/unit the prices won't go up in pubs, quite a lot of wine will be OK- most wines are around the 10 units mark, so that would be £5, decent label spirits will be OK or will hardly go up (e.g. Gordon's, Smirnoff, JD). However, cheap spirits, beer and the mass produced ciders would be hit hard and not affecting the affluent but affecting the poor is a bad political move.

 

The question is do I need to drive down to Oddbins before OS buys them out of the decent cider?

[oafcprozac]

You know the country is in the when the traditional pre-election tax cuts on stuff like cigs, booze and petrol doesn't happen. Having a minimum price for booze could be a good thing but it isn't going to affect those with money. If its 50p/unit the prices won't go up in pubs, quite a lot of wine will be OK- most wines are around the 10 units mark, so that would be £5, decent label spirits will be OK or will hardly go up (e.g. Gordon's, Smirnoff, JD). However, cheap spirits, beer and the mass produced ciders would be hit hard and not affecting the affluent but affecting the poor is a bad political move.

 

The question is do I need to drive down to Oddbins before OS buys them out of the decent cider?

 

Been that busy I forgot all about the budget today, caught the 5 o'clock headlines on the Plasma in reception on the way out of school, lmao when I saw that the scrumpy drinkers were getting hammered in a different way. The wife is distraught as Woodpecker is her favourite tipple! Personally i'm quite partial to a bottle of Koppaberg on a warm summer's evening but not too gutted. The wife's face was a real picture. Apparently panic buying has already started in the local supermarkets!

Edited March 24, 2010 by oafcprozac

[rosa]

Apparently panic buying has already started in the local supermarkets!

They only sell Thatchers Cheddar Valley as draught. You can get kegs of it online for £67. I'm seriously considering it.

[garcon]

Party at rosa's?

[leeslover]

The thought of Thatchers cider still makes me shudder, even though I know it's posh stuff now. One Easter I had about 20 people dossing in my student house, we proceeded to drink the local Costcutters dry of every other variety of extra strong apple-inspired chemical beverage, until in desperation we turned to the Thatcher's White Magic, which looked (and was) so incredibly cheap that we feared blindness if we drank it. It actually turned out to be better than the other stuff, and in a couple of weeks time one column of 2 litre bottles had become 2 x 2 litre and 1 x 3 litre.

 

I never under any circumstances drink ANY cider today.

[OldhamSheridan]

The question is do I need to drive down to Oddbins before OS buys them out of the decent cider?

 

You'll be alright as long as you don't try and buy Weston's at Tesco's.

 

They've sold out apparently.

[OldhamSheridan]

They only sell Thatchers Cheddar Valley as draught. You can get kegs of it online for £67. I'm seriously considering it.

 

I've done similar in the past with Old Rosie (in what is now referred to as 'Mark's Missing Month'*). The postage makes it bloody expensive. So I'm doing a Herefordshire 'run' myself, as I pass by (Southampton seems on the way-ish).

 

 

*Not to be confused with when I had absinthe and reinacted 'The Lost Weekend'.

[Max Damage]

I love the way ALL labour politicians talk about the deficit. They do this because they expect most voters will fall for this total and utter bollocks. The deficit is just the debt for that year and whilst we run a deficit the UK debt keeps rising. Labour want to reduce the deficit to 4.3% of GDP. That is still adding to the debt which in 4 years will be well over a trillion pounds!!!!! Labour are total effin clowns who have financially ruined the UK for a very, very, very long time. how the hell do you pay back around 1.5 trillion pounds? That is were it will end up before any sign of a budget surplus. As per usual the UK is screwed and labour have once again screwed is good and proper!!!

[Crusoe]

I doubt the Conservatives could or would have done any better. I won't be voting for either of them.

[outoftheblue]

There are many reasons cited for disliking the Conservatives, but the most common ones have always been misunderstood.

 

Poll Tax

Instead of the stealth taxes that labour are particularly fond of, The Tories realised that taxes needed to be increased and introduced the Poll (Or Council) tax in a blaze of publicity. The tax was designed to be as fair as possible, and instead of it being an unregulated opportunity for successive Governments to abuse, they put it in the hands of local councils who had no choice but to keep it fair or lose their seats (A la our 13% increase Liberal clowns).

Of course it was hated, but under any other Government it would have been payable more underhandedly, and the workshy would have avoided it whilst everyone else suffered.

 

Privatisation

Didn't like the idea myself, but realised that without the competitive element of it we would all be stuck on 40 year old unreliable diesel trains, queueing up to use urine soaked phone boxes, and at the mercy of the monopolous companies that were controlling the economy before they were regulated in line with the Retail Price Index.

 

Strikes

At the time, the unions pulled all the strings, and were crippling the country with demands of more for less despite huge competition from other upcoming countries.

I worked in Liverpool in 1983, and witnessed the power the dockers had over the city. They banged on about making the job easier, but when containers were introduced they realised that their jobs were now under threat and held strikes to rid the port of them, but it was too late, as the effectiveness of containers was realised, and the world's greatest port collapsed because the other ports accepted them while Liverpool dockers fought on until it was too late to save it.

The miner's story was slightly different, but they wouldn't accept that the demand for coal had dramatically dropped, and the unions dragged the miners through a fight they couldn't win and left the industry too scarred to recover - alternative fuels were already in place.

Unions are essential, but when they get too big and refuse to negotiate, there will always be one result - Thatcher realised this before giving in and crippling the country.

 

Falklands

British territory, British subjects, and crucial to our South Atlantic and Antarctic explorations for oil and gas pockets.

Thatcher took pride in our commonwealth, territories and subjects, and rightly defended them. New Labour would rather piss on the Gurkhas, and are happy to lose lands that are difficult to administer, rather than fight to keep them.

 

Sleaze

David Mellor scuttling Antonia de Sanchez was one of a handful of sleaze stories that were enough to put people off voting Conservative apparently.

Thing is, it's what is going on in society all over Britain right now, and has been (On such a scale) since the sixties. It's just that MP's are a little more careful now not to get caught.

It's the politics that count - we all have our own morals to worry about.

(I admit that John Major doing Edwina almost put me off voting for life though!)

 

The Tories were guilty of many, many mistakes, but nobody has set this country back beyond recovery like this current Government have, ever.

[oafc0000]

There are many reasons cited for disliking the Conservatives, but the most common ones have always been misunderstood.

 

A lot of truth there although I could rant a bit about the poll tax...

[Max Damage]

I doubt the Conservatives could or would have done any better. I won't be voting for either of them.

 

I don't think the tories have ever created debt on the scale of labour. Lets be brutally honest here. Labour are pushing us to debt of well over a trillion pounds!!!! If that doesn't worry you about the next 10 years then add to that the massive amount of UK debt these batards have hidden off the books. You thought the banks took the mickey, well Labour went much further with PFI - not on the books, public sector pension liabilities - not on the books and these sorts of things will probably see are REAL debt nearer £2 trillion than £1 trillion. How the hell do we pay that back? If the bond buyers say stuff this we don't want to lend to the UK then all hell breaks loose and the UK goes right down the :censored:ter. Of course loads of immigrants who came here for free money will probably go back home, but they should be got rid of now to reduce our debts. Can't do anything with our homegrown workshy scroungers but we can with someone elses.

[oafc0000]

I don't think the tories have ever created debt on the scale of labour.

 

Not true... Look at the graph here... It was higher under the Torys,

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8584978.stm

 

Net borrowing as a % of GDP was huge under the Torys.

 

And the massive forecasts is pretty much just down to the banking crisis. Now you are not going to tell me that would not have happened under the torys are you

Edited March 26, 2010 by oafc0000

[leeslover]

Sleaze

David Mellor scuttling Antonia de Sanchez was one of a handful of sleaze stories that were enough to put people off voting Conservative apparently.

Thing is, it's what is going on in society all over Britain right now, and has been (On such a scale) since the sixties. It's just that MP's are a little more careful now not to get caught.

It's the politics that count - we all have our own morals to worry about.

(I admit that John Major doing Edwina almost put me off voting for life though!)

Just on that point, I think the Tories absolutely deserved to be hammered over their shagging, solely because they chose to make it their business what member of the general public did behind closed doors with the Baxter Basics.

 

Incidentally, not many people know that Stephen Milligan didn't just have a piece of tangerine about his person when found hanged, he had a carrot as well.

[Max Damage]

Typical BBC reporting there I'm afraid. Using a deficit chart to make it look not to bad. where is the UK total debt chart? Budget deficts/suplusses should run in cycle of deficit in recession and surplus in the good times. this current rabble have run deficits in the best years ever and that is truely unforgivable

 

Also wasn't that peak on the budget deficit around the ERM debacle?

 

The forcast for total debt excluding the hidden stuff is way over £1 trillion which that chart from the BBC does not show. The chart you and we all need is the nations total debt chart and not the deficit chart. The total debt under Labour this time round is off the scale. Of course for the history books if the Tories win it will be under thier stewerdship where the chart shows the UK debt at these truely horrendous levels. I reckon they should bring all Labours hidden debt onto the books but if they did that it would be curtains for us!!!.

 

As for voting then not labour for me, nor Tory after reading the guy go on about his muslim faith in some essay he wrote, so that leaves me with only 2 candidates to choose from. The liberals and the BNP. I really hope some others stand in Oldham.

 

http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National...ran_Ghafoor.pdf

 

SO he was labour, now he is tory and reckons he should specifically help the muslim population. So definately not one for me I'm afraid

 

I have ambition to do more, to actually help people, that is really what is in my heart, to help

people, to help Muslim people have a voice. Specifically Muslim people, because I think, in

this country, we are underrepresented, especially in the climate that we’re living in at the

moment. We need a voice at the highest level. If somebody says Muslim, the first word that

comes to people’s mind is ‘terrorist’, where in fact it should be ‘peace, love, humanity,’ or a

hundred other such words.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Max Damage

[oafc0000]

Typical BBC reporting there I'm afraid. Using a deficit chart to make it look not to bad.

 

 

Sorry but borrowing as a % of GDP is the best tool to use...

[oafc0000]

Total debt is a crude number... and makes it impossible to compare how it was under the Torys etc...

Edited March 26, 2010 by oafc0000

[garcon]

I don't think it was so much the stories of Mellor scuttling tarts in Chelsea kits that did for the last Tory government, as the far more serious and relevant sleaze of corruption in Westminster, particularly the cash for questions scandal. Neil Hamilton contrived to lose one of the safest Tory seats in the country over that (in my constituency - about the only time I've felt my vote there has been worthwhile - and yes I did vote for Martin Bell).

[leeslover]

 

Sorry but borrowing as a % of GDP is the best tool to use...

It doesn't mean much without context. The facts are as Max suggested, the increase second in borrowing under the Tories came during a sustained period of economic stagnation which was caused to a fair degree by the ERM membership. The early 80s borrowing was due to the situation the Thatcher government inherited, the reforms they made were not only painful but expensive (and highly necessary IMO). What you can't get away from is that this government has increased it's rate of borrowing during a period of unprecedented world growth, the debt levels are NOT because of the banking crisis, they are a result of them living outside their means in the good times, making it inevitable that they would leave us deep in it when thinks took a turn for the worst for whatever reason.

[oafc0000]

It doesn't mean much without context. The facts are as Max suggested, the increase second in borrowing under the Tories came during a sustained period of economic stagnation which was caused to a fair degree by the ERM membership. The early 80s borrowing was due to the situation the Thatcher government inherited, the reforms they made were not only painful but expensive (and highly necessary IMO). What you can't get away from is that this government has increased it's rate of borrowing during a period of unprecedented world growth, the debt levels are NOT because of the banking crisis, they are a result of them living outside their means in the good times, making it inevitable that they would leave us deep in it when thinks took a turn for the worst for whatever reason.

 

Dear lord that last part is straight from the Daily Mail / Tory election bull:censored:...

[garcon]

If that last part was ever printed in an edition of the Daily Mail, it'd be the only sentence in the entire hateful rag that is true.

[oafc0000]

If that last part was ever printed in an edition of the Daily Mail, it'd be the only sentence in the entire hateful rag that is true.

 

The idea we should of been putting money away in the good times to cover up the massive whole which was about to blow up in the banking sector holds no weight in my eyes.

 

How much do people think we could of put away to protect ourselves ? Did they want pre 97 hospitals and schools ?

Edited March 26, 2010 by oafc0000

[leeslover]

Dear lord that last part is straight from the Daily Mail / Tory election bull:censored:...

I would have thought it was all straightforward fact, apart from the bit I followed with IMO .