DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

^

I agree, fuck a bedroom tax, and agree with the inference I think I'm supposed to make that it was a policy that was never supposed to work as stated. One of the worst things that could have happened (from a Conservative pov) would have been people moving house when the intention was clearly to cut welfare.

Wait, I must be missing a trick here. Are you saying the £35M is a made-up Scottish figure? I was under the impression it was ACTUAL compensation payments made to restore benefits for people that had had them cut, in which case the number of people moving house is irrelevant from a financial perspective. If, instead, it's the value which would be needed if nobody moved and everybody was 'taxed' then since we seem to be assuming some people have moved then the whole £35M can't have been spent so it can't all be 'saved' either. Also missing from your analogy is Holyrood getting their collected speed camera revenue given to them.

Also noting that if the actual saving turns out to be £320M as the Guardian article claims then the pro-rata of £35M turns out to be about right.

Things that you won't need to pay for as a result of no bedroom taxes:

People getting evicted for arrears and then having to downsize into a private let, possibly an ex-council place owned by a BTL landlord
People getting evicted for arrears and then going into shockingly expensive hostels and/or B&B
People getting evicted for arrears in London and then being transported/socially cleansed away from their support networks
Administration for the above
Knock-on costs to social care and the NHS

^^^these things *do* add up to quite a bit, but I can't say how much.

People getting evicted in London has no effect on how much money might get added back into the Scottish budget. Knock on costs exist, sure, but they do for the implications of any policy (such as cancelling Trident turning Cumbria into an unemployment blackspot {haha, autocorrect wants to turn that into Blackpool Blackpool} which doesn't seem to be addressed in that policy).

You only save money on administration if you have less staff (or give them new things to do which are unrelated).

meanwhile:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/17-reasons-to-register-to-vote-immediately-5553337

(not sure about all this but as I understand it)

Housing benefit is paid by local authorities.
Local authorities reclaim housing benefit from DWP, not from the Scottish government. (so Holyrood doesn't see the speed camera money)
Local authorities administer the "bedroom tax" (i.e. cut housing benefit).
The Scottish government makes up the shortfall in benefits for those who have been "taxed" by giving money to local authorities from the Discretionary Housing Payments budget, thus allowing people "living in houses that are too big for them" to stay in them, rather than moving to all the non-existent smaller ones.
The Scottish government's figures say £35m was paid this year and budgeted for next year from the DHP, though I think some of the money set aside was unclaimed.

Abolishing bedroom tax means full housing benefit is paid by local authorities and claimed back from DWP and that the Scottish government therefore will be able to use its DHP budget on things that aren't bedroom tax.
I think that adds up to a saving in Scotland paid for by central UK government.

There are issues around DHP that I'm not 100% on - it was provided by DWP but I think ScotGov had a cap removed to allow additional spending to help with bedroom tax/housing benefits issues. Of course Scotland's chunk of DHP might be cut following an abolition of bedroom tax which would affect the total saving figures.

I imagine the cost of administering DHP claims is also significant as this is down to individual households to claim - the government/local authority can't issue a blanket extra £20 to everyone who's been docked £20 for rattling around a massive council mansion.

With you now. "We'll have more money to spend if Westminster gives us more money and doesn't stop giving us the extra money that only exists because of this policy." Not nearly as sound bite-y.

To save the administration costs local authorities will have to pay off staff or give them less hours on their contracts.

It doesn't only exist because of this policy.

Yes, or maybe not cut as many other services to meet budget shortfalls (caused in part by presentationally nice but ultimately damaging things like Council Tax freezes enforced by the SNP).

the bowels are not what they seem do you love trident

Tories going ridiculously hard on the horrific prospect of a Labour/ SNP coalition of some kind, yet they don't seem to have thought through that the best way to avoid such outcome is to, er, vote Labour.

Are the Tories actually building up the SNP north of the border or is this just extra froth on top of the hysteria? I know the Scottish Sun published that cuddly Sturgeon front page today, but that's their usual back-the-obvious-winner thing from what I can see.

The Scottish Sun has been broadly pro-SNP for quite a while - Salmond has been as shameless a supplicant to Murdoch as any other politician

Idgaf about Trident itself one way or the other, less than £2Bn a year saving feels like a small return for closing a facility with 5000 employees (since the subject of consequential effects on people and the cost to health service etc) which is the county's only major employer, see also the effect on Rolls Royce Derby (11,000 employees) and AWE Aldermaston (no idea how many but over 2,000 certainly). And the effect on Scotland's biggest single site employer, which will have the reason for it existing removed - it may well continue but on a very minor scale; I'd expect >70% jobs to go. Also to be debated would need to be the impact on permanent membership of UNSC, which is as yet untested, and other benefits of Big 5 membership would need to be quantified (better/closer trade is often thrown about

guys i have terrible news. my terrible father moved house and now my postal vote is in sheffield central, not sheffield hallam :(

The SNP killing Trident and its replacement is a handy scare story for the Wesatminster parties but the reality is it will be replaced with a huge cross party majority vote regardless of how many seats the SNP wins.

Seems like the Tories are finally getting some traction with this SNP boogeyman bit.

Why do you say that?

This is mostly an issue in Labour-Tory marginals, probably largely in the south of England, and I'm not sure whether Miliband was likely to win too many of them anyway, although it may prevent a few seats in Essex or outer London ticking over from red to blue. Might also mean a few go from yellow to blue rather than yellow to red.

Obviously the people of Scotland are not really the intended audience.

Indeed, and of course bigging up the SNP isn't really helping the Unionist cause in Scotland, the Union that Cameron was so passionate and committed to preserving a few months back.

Idgaf about Trident itself one way or the other, less than £2Bn a year saving feels like a small return for closing a facility with 5000 employees (since the subject of consequential effects on people and the cost to health service etc) which is the county's only major employer, see also the effect on Rolls Royce Derby (11,000 employees) and AWE Aldermaston (no idea how many but over 2,000 certainly). And the effect on Scotland's biggest single site employer, which will have the reason for it existing removed - it may well continue but on a very minor scale; I'd expect >70% jobs to go. Also to be debated would need to be the impact on permanent membership of UNSC, which is as yet untested, and other benefits of Big 5 membership would need to be quantified (better/closer trade is often thrown about

― the bowels are not what they seem (aldo),

it's 30bn a year and this is not an issue of economics

can't front, Auk otm

Many xps, but looking back over the campaign so far it's mostly been more-or-less hapless attempts by either side to get a narrative to start, and now we're in day two of solid "have you thought what the SNP working with Labour will mean?!". Labour doesn't have a good reply, the Tories are in their element fear-mongering, and it just feels to me a lot like the pound issue did during the referendum campaign: sticky and involved and therefore going to be an undercurrent to everything from now on.

Played right it could pull both the soft UKIP and soft Labour votes back into the Tories, like Matt says. I haven't done the sums, but I also suspect there isn't enough in it to make a concrete different to the outcome, but it's something all the same.

the reality is it will be replaced with a huge cross party majority vote regardless of how many seats the SNP wins.

yeah, this, someone should pull up Cameron on it: does this mean the tories plan to vote against trident

"In a dangerous world, we in the Conservative Party are profoundly committed to the renewal of Britain's nuclear deterrent, and the importance of this to the UK's security and in view of British commitment to the NATO alliance. But obv we wd totes clown labour by voting against trident lol.

"

wld be a lot cheaper to scrap trident and pay those 5000 employees £50k each annually. should be redundant to point out its a disgrace how much of the economy revolves around defence contractors

^

it's 30bn a year and this is not an issue of economics

― Arctic Noon Auk, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 16:11 (1 hour ago)

OK, I thought I was getting out of this but wtf please show working.

The £100Bn figure thrown around is a 40+ year figure and includes paying for the members of the Navy involved during that period, these are CND's own calculations so not from a remotely sympathetic source. Given the UK defence budget is currently £61Bn, I'd love to know who's suggesting that 50% of the budget would be spent on a single programme without even considering upkeep of existing equipment, wages, food, fuel, computer systems...

You know what? I am out. Bye.

i'm just going to put this here

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/the-milifandom#.aiLop3w6o

OK, I thought I was getting out of this but wtf please show working.

The £100Bn figure thrown around is a 40+ year figure and includes paying for the members of the Navy involved during that period, these are CND's own calculations so not from a remotely sympathetic source. Given the UK defence budget is currently £61Bn, I'd love to know who's suggesting that 50% of the budget would be spent on a single programme without even considering upkeep of existing equipment, wages, food, fuel, computer systems...

You know what? I am out. Bye.

― the bowels are not what they seem (aldo), Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:46 PM

It would be wrong even it if it cost 99p a year.

lmao 30bn

lmao 99p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONlfWWxEgIk

Hear hear, lj.

I missed this about the Queen. A+ wtfery http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/queen-palace-coup-miliband-snp-cameron-huitson-345

nicely written piece that completely fails to address what a total mockery of himself miliband will make if he goes back on his explicit word

Mmmm. He's made a rod for his own back, but I thought he'd left a small amount of wriggle wroom for a looser confidence and supply type arrangement. A formal coalition would look pretty bad for him, but as we know, promises on the campaign trail have pretty much zero constitutional weight.

In any case if Labour + SNP added up to 325+ seats, what is Miliband supposed to do, if the SNP pledge to vote against any tory government, and for at least the Queens speech and budget of a labour one? He's got a working majority then whether he wants it or not. The only alternative to him forming a government, is to ally with the tories in a grand coalition, which I can't quite see.

loser confidence and supply type arrangement lol

This hypothetical labour minority government would have big problems with the House of Lords, I expect.

Socialist Labour aims to end capitalism

Now that's what I call an election pledge, is it unfunded though?

My guess is that we'll have around a year of unpopular Labour minority government supported by SNP before it falls apart, and it will be followed by a Tory majority in 2016 led by Boris.

But I hope not!

Labour minority needn't be unpopular, especially if they can stand up to the rabid right wing hysteria that will follow. No doubt the Tory press will paint a minority government backed by the SNP, Plaid et al as 'a deal' but it clearly is no such thing. All the SNP et al would be doing is voting for a Labour Queen's Speech. They can vote how they want after that. It's conveniently ignored in the London press that the SNP never wanted a coalition because they don't want to be tainted like the Lib Dems were.

The SNP are pragmatists who know how to run a minority administration. All this nonsense about them causing chaos and trying to bring down Westminster from within - the British establishment is doing a good enough job of undermining the Union with its undemocratic 'Scots know your place' rhetoric.
The nationwide popularity of Boris is questionable. He's not a credible leader. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the Tories when Cameron goes though - plenty of bitter infighting I expect. He might actually hang on despite losing the election, but there will certainly be challenges to his leadership. Either way, the more the Tories implode, the better for the rest of us.

The press is already trying to paint such an alliance as illegitimate and that's only going to get louder, especially given Miliband's route to the Labour leadership.

Labour know full well they can basically rely on SNP support on most issues because unless they abstain, they'll end up voting with the Tories and that would be suicidal. Ironically the thing most likely to save the Union would be SNP involvement in Westminster government, which is probably why the SNP will want to stay out of it themselves and maximise the difference in voter's minds between themselves and Labour.

Miliband got mobbed a random hen party the other day as well. Part of me hopes this is all some kind of next-level PRing but most of me hopes it's authentic.

"The press is already trying to paint such an alliance as illegitimate and that's only going to get louder, especially given Miliband's route to the Labour leadership."

Quite true. Hopefully they'll stand up to it. The irony is that the Fixed Parliament Act, which was designed to keep the Tories in power, will now work to keep Labour in. Cameron's short termism is biting him on the bum, heh heh.

"MAY now work" - unwise to get ahead of myself.
A good riposte to the Tory illegitimacy line is to point out that the Tories themselves haven't won a majority since 1992. Bring on the death of Tory England!
I do hope the SNP and others can push electoral reform onto the agenda in the next parliament. FPTP has entrenched the neo-liberal consensus and stymied any real change. Scotland is fed up with it, hence Labour's meltdown up here.

Boris fans seem like they're an inside-the-M25 thing only, like people who claim to be able to afford Range Rovers but not to be able to afford congestion charges in West London. I welcome any and all opportunities to point out he has a younger and cleverer brother in the Cabinet Office, Jo, who is also an MP, so part of me thinks that this backstabbing bro meme they've tried on Miliband is a shot over the bow to establish boundaries that favour another elder brother somewhere down the line. Oh, and Jo Johnson is married to Amelia Gentleman (who writes compassionately about poor people for the Guardian) and as far as I know, hasn't left a trail of broken hearts, abortions and actual children as markers of his infidelity.

Boris fans definitely exist outside of London, he was a national media personality way before he had anything particularly to do with the capital beyond having a shagpad here.

I have it from a very reliable source that Jo Johnson is an atrocious human being, all Boris's ruthlessness without the charm.

I suspect that what will actually happen is that the toff vote will be split between Boris and Osborne and they will end up with Theresa May or maybe some out-of-nowhere class of 2010 dude.

Oh, and Jo Johnson is married to Amelia Gentleman (who writes compassionately about poor people for the Guardian)

i have always wondered about this alliance