Feelings on the two Manifesto's

How I feel about the two main party manifesto's:

Labour Manifesto: I'm been offered a Porsche by a guy who can't afford it. Very exciting to read and look out but next to no confidence in the man or his ability to pay for it. Verdict: Feelings of excitement and wanting it to believe in it but can't.

Tory Manifesto : I've been offered a second hand Mondeo that has a few bumps and scrapes on it - I accept the scrapes because I know it's a fair price for what I can afford. Verdict: Completely underwhelming but an acknowledgement that this all we can afford.

If I was young enough I'd emigrate.

The Two Manifestos - are they one of those new fangled pop duos?

Rhys wrote:How I feel about the two main party manifesto's:

Labour Manifesto: I'm been offered a Porsche by a guy who can't afford it. Very exciting to read and look out but next to no confidence in the man or his ability to pay for it. Verdict: Feelings of excitement and wanting it to believe in it but can't.

Tory Manifesto : I've been offered a second hand Mondeo that has a few bumps and scrapes on it - I accept the scrapes because I know it's a fair price for what I can afford. Verdict: Completely underwhelming but an acknowledgement that this all we can afford.

I think those are pretty good analogies. Going to be a tough few years, but I believe that the UK ultimately will be in much better shape.

I live in a country that has fantastic local services, especially healthcare, but the population pays at a level that would never be contemplated in the UK.

Is taxation much higher in france then? I suppose if you want the number one health service in the world then you have to pay for it

Slumdog's Son™ wrote:Is taxation much higher in france then? I suppose if you want the number one health service in the world then you have to pay for it

Not so much Income Tax, but the equivalent of National Insurance is astronomic and there are various other things tagged on to the annual bill that all add up. Standard rate to hire any tradesman is about 45€ an hour, 50% of which has to be paid over in tax and NI. Not surprisingly, there is a huge black economy, particularly amongst the Brit ex-pats.

Interesting views on the Labour manifesto. Of the two, that's the one that does the best at costing all of its pledges, so you can see where the money will come from.

I think one of the points Labour made was that they would generate significant additional income by increasing taxation on those earning £80,000 per annum. But it's been proven that those within that bracket are more efficient at tax avoidance by legal methods and would circumnavigate a lot of the new taxes. That would then deplete the actual funds required for a lot of the Labour spending plans. Another point was that a National Investment Bank would be created that would spend £250bn on U.K. projects, but there isn't really any tangible information on how this would be funded. I'm also concerned by Jeremy's links to extremist groups like the IRA and his campaigning on behalf of terrorist groups is pretty unforgivable.

I do like the idea of renationalising a lot of business sectors as I think train transport is a shambles and miles behind most of Europe let alone places like Japan. And the Conservatives selling off power plants to China is bizarre when we have the capability to build them ourselves then run the energy industry as we see fit without becoming bedfellows with China.