Blah Blah

I still think 'loss' is a red herring given that mr Ben still has the property and the equity in the rising value of it. It just means he has to pay ?40 of his own mortgage!

The OP has a point though in that there seems to be no catagory for things that warrant serious discussion, but are not ED specific.

Yeah that's my logic too Loz. Short term it might help first time buyers get a property, but long term it will further squeeze supply in the rental market, unless those properties are bought by cash buying landlords of course. But having said that, it's not a measure to solve any housing problems is it. It's a measure to claw in more tax.

MrBen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just checked what it means for me on my old > flat...and my ?90 tax per month on the marginal > profit I make now becomes ?450 tax per > month....putting it firmly into loss making > position. > > It's a very sensible policy to put brakes on BTL - > people will sell up for sure. But is it really a loss? I thought the whole idea of BTL is that you get a mortgage on another property and get a tenant to pay that mortgage off for you.

I usually sing to them. Abba's 'Money Money Money' is my favourite. Sometimes I do 'Don't Take Your Guns to Town'. Any more suggestions are welcome.

And I like your style too Louisa, even though I don't always agree with you :)

I'm with Otta. I like that Church is fighting her corner. And some women ARE given a raw deal for having opinions. Is that sexism? Misogyny? (that word always seems to get the most guilty of men riled up). At the end of the day she has an opinion. We may agree with it, we may not, but sneering because of her background or gender isn't clever. Like I said before, I like her style.

I'm liking her more and more.

Yep, on the edge of the seat stuff. I've gone from beer to whisky :D

But to the ordinary Greek person living in such a dire economy, an antithesis to the market based capitalism in place, sounds like a good idea. Can't blame them at all for it. It's an interesting scenario. The EU doesn't want Greece to leave the EU because of the market crash it will bring accross Europe. The cost of keeping them in the EU is also high. But Germany should remember the lessons of it's own history. Writing off some of it's debt after WW2 helped it to recover. Some of that debt was written off by Greece herself. I don't see why some of Greece's debt can't be written off with a restructered repayment system that gives her economy at least some chance of recovering. They have to get proper tax enforcement in place etc but it can be done. The alternative is that they leave the EU, get fiscally annexed by Russia, or descend into some kind of civil war, right on the doorstep of the EU.

Agreed rahrah and if ISIS make progress we can expect increasing refugees for some time to come. It's not as simple as that Louisa. Remember Sangatte? These people don't want to stay in France. That's the hard thing to resolve.

Louisa, the French do have plenty of immigrant settlers of their own, mainly from French speaking North African countries. They were a colonial empire too in the past. The French did close those camps at one point and it made not a jot of difference. If people are determined to get to the UK through France, only imprisonment will stop them, and we don't want to go down that road. We are born where we are by accident of birth. The distribution of wealth, faireness etc is controlled by a cartel of a few richer nations. When we sort out that out, we might just create a world where every country has an economy that stops people wanting to flee to somewhere else in the first place.

Don;t know how I came accross this but it's funny. http://home.bt.com/news/odd-news/spoof-video-mocks-womens-football-11363988404862

Could never vote for any offspring of the hideous James Goldsmith.

Not really a footy fan beyond world and european cups, but watched the last few games. The standard certainly seems to be high to me. Enjoyed it so far.

Gotchs Dave. Understand your point now and see what you mean. Agreed Otta. That plus the endless haranging about post election deals and coslitions. Many decent policies were lost under that nonsense.

Economics isn't rocket science Jeremy. It's just politicians and bankers that like to pretend it is.

A bottle of Budweiser

DaveR, it's such a lazy response to label something you disagree with as Liberal denial. You can look back to Ted Heath and James Callaghan and others to see the challenges are the same in all times of economic downturns, and solutions are more about timing than the solutions themselves. You presume that those who didn't vote may have voted coservative? They didn't vote. They abstained. That can absolutely be taken as an anti any party vote. Equally lazy is the champagne socialist label. As partisan as your 'all celebrities are in it for themselves' quote Louisa. Agree with rahrah. And Blair had to take the party where he did to make it electable. You are harking back to an era that no longer exists Louisa. And I hate that as much as you. But until we can make ordinary people put collective gain before individual gain, todays parties will continue down the path of giving selected groups of people what they want, rather than building a fairer economy for all. Part of the problem is that government is now in the hand of the markets. Pretty much every avenue has been tried to increase productivity since the early 70's, and failed. One of the marvels of the modern economy is in how it manages to deliver growth without increased productivity. That's the downside of the success of the takeover era and the subsequent replacement of those raiders by the pension funds. The markets are not taking care of anyone but themselves and shareholders, they have no interest in regeneraton, but our economy it totally dependent on them. The left have to recognise that dependence. So I totally agree with Loz that Labour now have a huge mountain to climb. If they don't regain those Scottish seats they will never have a majority again imo. The Labour party will become totally unelectable if say Corbyn becomes leader. All parties are up against strong market forces and billions spent on lobbying. Ordinary people can not compete with that.

I think you are right and there's no reason why the same system couldn't be successful here. Part of the problem is that the main parties are so used to having it all their way that it seems the art of compromise has been lost. Who says that one party government is the only way to strong government? If you really think about it, the best government is the mid ground when the voting share is so definitively split. Only where radical change is needed do coalitions become ineffective, but there is so little difference fiscally between our main parties at the moment that we don't need to worry too much about that.

That's the precentage of those who voted Loz, not of the entire electorate. http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm Have a look at the chart on that link. Turnout dropped drastically from 2001. And to be fair the 2005 Labour win has similar stats but lower turnout and yet they had 355 seats.

No, electoral reform only offered us AV which is very different to PR. I voted no to AV but would have voted yes to PR. We don't know if the electorate want PR as they were never asked. And timing plays a role in these things too. You only have to look at the Scottish Independence referendum to understand that. Cameron wants to reduce the number of MPs by around sixty. You can bet that the boundary changes required to deliver that will be shaped entirely to the favour of his party (and yes all parties would do that). I think it's time for a system where every persons vote counts. Just because something has always been that way doesn't mean it should stay that way. I sense a growing discontent with our politicians and system. The young are particularly impressive in their understanding of the future awaiting them, and they are in no mood to work and pay taxes to keep the over 65s in pensions and benefits while they can't even afford a pension or house etc. There is an antithesis to the free market selfish consumer individuality, developing in them. And you only have to look at how few of the parties offered any policies aimed at them to see why that alienation is developing.

I accept your point on consistency Loz and don't disgree with it, but any government that gains power by such a low voting share is going to be open to criticism and Cameron did stand up in parliament and say his party had a mandate to govern from the people, to huge laughter from the opposition and me :D