Countdown to General Election 7th May 2015

[RobertP]

Hi,

 

First of all I will declare my interest - I am part of Diana Toynbee's campaign team (Green Party for Hereford and South H'shire). I'll be happy to field questions on her behalf. Her website is http://www.diana4hereford.net/

 

The Green Party manifesto was published today, available at

 

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html

 

In case HerefordVoice members have not seen the Hereford Times series of opinion pieces by Green candidates standing for both Herefordshire constituencies, the first week's (subject Crime & Disorder, 2 April ) is on the HT website:

 

http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/12873224.Diana_Toynbee__Green____Crime___disorder/?ref=ar

http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/12873242.Daisy_Blench__Green____Crime___disorder/?ref=ar

 

I'll post the next ones (on Transport - 9 April) when they appear on the HTimes website

[greenknight]

Well Robertp you are most welcome as are all the parties ..please be prepared for honest discussion and frank opinion.

[Cambo]

Anybody going to the meeting tonight?

I may go along AV as I'm interested in asking the candidates where they stand on supporting small business & the self employed!

[Roger]

This was dropped through my door earlier today, can't say I have ever heard of this guy but this is his campaign leaflet.

 

This candidate is relatively new as the original candidate, Kip Waistell, left in some acrimonious circumstances ...

 

HT link

[Roger]

Also the Tories today said that they want to let Housing Association Tenants buy the home they live in on the cheap! Brilliant if you live in one but then where do new prospective tenants live when the existing stock has been sold? Replacement properties won't be built in the next Month obviously. Just a tactic to try and buy Labour votes' .... at any price! Just like Thatcher did! She sold off the Council Houses and that's why we have too few Social Units left! But great in the 80's if you bought one for next to nothing! 

[ragwert]

Have just been listening to Suzanne Evans from UKIP on BBC1 breakfast,if Nigel dose step down after the elections and she becomes top dog the other parties
better look out at the next general election in five years time.

[Cambo]

Also the Tories today said that they want to let Housing Association Tenants buy the home they live in on the cheap! Brilliant if you live in one but then where do new prospective tenants live when the existing stock has been sold? Replacement properties won't be built in the next Month obviously. Just a tactic to try and buy Labour votes' .... at any price! Just like Thatcher did! She sold off the Council Houses and that's why we have too few Social Units left! But great in the 80's if you bought one for next to nothing!

Since the 80's they have sold something like 1.5 million social houses but only built around 300,000.

Yet there are around 700,000 empty houses in the UK so why are these not being utilised?

[Cambo]

Also the Tories today said that they want to let Housing Association Tenants buy the home they live in on the cheap! Brilliant if you live in one but then where do new prospective tenants live when the existing stock has been sold? Replacement properties won't be built in the next Month obviously. Just a tactic to try and buy Labour votes' .... at any price! Just like Thatcher did! She sold off the Council Houses and that's why we have too few Social Units left! But great in the 80's if you bought one for next to nothing!

Since the 80's they have sold something like 1.5 million social houses but only built around 300,000.

Yet there are around 700,000 empty houses in the UK so I don't see why they can't utilised these.

[Sebaileyus_PhD]

i agree with what youre saying Cambo, but can you imagine the headlines about "tory home theft" if they seized even a few empty properties? even if they bought them at market value, there would be an incredible backlash. especially as im thinking a few of these are owned by expats who may return to the UK to find themselves homeless. it would be career suicide for any politicians or civil servants involved. :(

[WirralPC]

i agree with what youre saying Cambo, but can you imagine the headlines about "tory home theft" if they seized even a few empty properties? even if they bought them at market value, there would be an incredible backlash. especially as im thinking a few of these are owned by expats who may return to the UK to find themselves homeless. it would be career suicide for any politicians or civil servants involved. :(

 

Which doesn't address the obscenity of it all.

Homeless spikes anyone?

[Denise Lloyd]

I admire your loyalty Sebastian I hope it won't be abused in the fullness of time 

[Cambo]

i agree with what youre saying Cambo, but can you imagine the headlines about "tory home theft" if they seized even a few empty properties? even if they bought them at market value, there would be an incredible backlash. especially as im thinking a few of these are owned by expats who may return to the UK to find themselves homeless. it would be career suicide for any politicians or civil servants involved. :(

Well Sebastian it would make a change to take from the rich & give to the poor,instead of take from the poor & give to the rich!!..... Then I I might believe Dave & George were all in it together!

 

I'm not talking about people's second homes but rather house which have been left to fall into dereliction & boarded up houses.

A couple of years ago I was in Liverpool around the Anfield area & there were rows of ornate victorian terrace house a lot of these were boarded up run down & going derelict not all but a lot.

If these were renovated & the areas brought back to life I'm sure people would want to live in them?…you could say its a kind of recycling!!

[dippyhippy]

They have done this in, I think, Stoke on Trent.

 

There were several streets worth of empty, dilapidated properties. The local authority did not have the funds to modernise/bring them up to a decent standard. The area as a whole was in decline, and something needed to be done.

 

These houses were offered to local folks, or folks with a local connection, and who could not get onto the housing ladder, for £1.00.

 

The prospective homeowners  had to borrow/ raise, I think it was £15k. to bring the properties up to a habitable standard.

 

There was a written agreement, that should the property be sold within ten years a quite chunky percentage of any profit would have to be paid back to the council...... this ensures that the properties are bought as long term homes for families, not those trying to make a quick buck.

 

There are many abandoned properties locally.

 

Folks are homeless.

 

In 2015 this is SO wrong.

[Aylestone Voice]

HC calculated in Sept 2014 that there were 723 empty houses in the County

[dippyhippy]

What a difference those properties could make....

[Cambo]

What a difference those properties could make....

also a alternative to building lots of new house on green belt land which seems to be a obsession for developers & politicians alike?

[dippyhippy]

Absolutely Cambo!

[ragwert]

After it was revealed earlier today that George Osborne was to pull a further £5.8 billion out of his arse to fund the subsidisation of Housing Association sales, scientists have been arguing excitedly about the incredible capacity of his colon. Having already found £8 billion for the NHS and £7 billion in tax cuts earlier in the year, it is now being said by some that Osborne’s ‘Tardis Arse’ is in fact the biggest of its kind in the western world.

Colon expert Prof. James Francis said; ‘we thought that Ed Balls had stretched way beyond capacity by offering to pay for the minimum-wage jobs of the long term unemployed, but this is truly miraculous.’

Speaking at a press conference, Francis went on to brief the gathered journalists on how Osborne was doing it; demonstrating with a specially prepared model. According to Francis, the NHS money was stored in an area of the colon normally inaccessible to chancellors, but due to deep rectal mining techniques, Osborne had been able to pull the money out of his arse with relative ease. ‘The tricky bit was the housing cash’ Francis added, saying that a little known area of the large intestine had recently been discovered to churn out ten pound notes and the Tories were now hoping to exploit the finding for all it was worth.

However, physicists have also been much occupied with the question of George Osborne’s arse, but have come to far more disquieting conclusions. Said Dr. John Taylor of Oxford University; ‘We think it may be a temporary quantum phenomenon known as ‘Schrödinger’s Arse’, when the money is simultaneously both there and not there. It may be that, despite Mr. Osborne’s confidence that the money can be pulled out, by the time he actually has someone reach up there it will have disappeared.’

Other skeptics have said that, given how tight Osborne’s arse has been in recent years, such a rapid expansion could have devastating consequences. Taylor added that some of his colleagues are convinced that his rectum could ‘contract rapidly into a black hole, sucking in and destroying great quantities of local matter, with potentially disastrous consequences’.

George Osborne seemed confused when quizzed about his miraculous arse, and actually looked at his elbow. ‘He’s always had problems telling one from the other,’ explained his minder.

[twowheelsgood]

HC calculated in Sept 2014 that there were 723 empty houses in the County

 

Did that include the big one standing empty on the top of Hafod Road? Just what is happening with Brockington? It was supposed to pay for (some of) the Shire Hall and Plough Lane luxury refits. That didn't work too well did it?

[Aylestone Voice]

TWG - obviously not as it has not been a house for donkeys years. That said if we included all the empty office space, which potentially can be done, then the vacancy number could be even more significant.

But if you were asking me about the sale - how the hell would I know?

[twowheelsgood]

It was rhetorical question - I merely picked up on your interesting factoid.

[Sebaileyus_PhD]

if its something you guys think would be a good idea, at least at local level, if elected i will look into it and find out where its been done and with what degree of success. i certainly think its a good idea, as i said above. perhaps a national initiative isn't needed here :) if bill tanner tries to take me down on this im counting on you all for backup !

[Aylestone Voice]

TWG - sorry for the somewhat stroppy reply

[twowheelsgood]

No problem!

[Cambo]

Try this vote match from 38degrees to find out which political party policy agree with your own.

 

 

<iframe width="100%" height="800" src="http://38degrees.votematch.org/" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Roger]

UKIP candidate campaigning in Hereford today ... His charm was obviously lost on the Council traffic attendant  

 

 

[ragwert]

Nigel Farage has slammed the Large Hadron Collider for taking two years off work then coming back online to ‘deliberately introduce dark matter into an already crowded Universe’. The UKIP leader has long highlighted quantum immigration as an ‘explosive issue’ for the general election.

‘Frankly we just don’t have the infrastructure to assimilate all these new particles’, Farage raged, taking an earnest boggle-eyed bantam stance. ‘It has been openly admitted that we don’t really know where all these ‘exotic particles’ originate and we know far less about their skills and employment records. How do we know that the minute these particles are created, they won’t go straight on benefits?’

Farage pointed out that the last time the Collider worked, or as he put it ‘engaged in particle trafficking’, particles appeared that no-one ever heard of and that seemed to be in a state of rapid decay on arrival. He added: ‘How do we know that the NHS of the future can cope with an influx of negative, unstable particles, with no tangible financial contribution?’

Likening the Large Hadron Collider to a ‘bastard child of the Channel Tunnel and a big revolving door’, the UKIP leader expressed concerns that it would punch a black hole into the finances of the EU, leaving the hard-pressed British taxpayer to foot the bill, yet again. At this point, he was greeted with a round of sustained applause by a leading British taxpayer, identified unofficially as Joe Muggins, 38, from Billericay.

‘We want assurances that the Collider will put British particles first and prevent positive discrimination in favour of foreign and untrustworthy ‘dark matter’,’ the UKIP leader concluded. ‘An influx of this sort of thing could destabilise Britain and all the other bits of the Universe we are less bothered about. We already have incipient riots every time floppy-haired, slappable physicists hijack our televisions to use language such as ‘Quark’ and ‘God Particle’. Things can only get worse.’

[megilleland]

Following on from my post 12 in this topic, UKIP have now published their 72pp manifesto. So there is more than just immigration contained in it. With only 17 days to go it is time to get down to detail and serious reading.

 

The Conservative manifesto is here

 

The Green Party manifesto is here

 

The Labour Party manifesto is here

 

The Liberal Democrats manifesto is here

[megilleland]

Came across this video concerning the UK and the EU. After watching this you may want to vote to come out if you get the chance. Only UKIP can do it.

 

Countdown timer to General Election 7th May 2015

[Roger]

Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 tore Ed Miliband apart at about 1.15 PM today on Radio 2 ... He number crunched some figures and it suggested that people who owned a house worth over £3 Million would get an added tax bill of over £36K a year. With the Mansion Tax .... Ed never had an answer to the point!