Richard Hawley

just emailed the labour website telling them they can shove my vote up their collective arses. i used to come out with the princely sum of £635 a month for the teaching assistant thing. this month? £598. fucking disgraceful. who came up with that bright idea then? 'we're the party of the working class.ooh, i know, we'll tax everybody on under £15k and give it to the middle classes'. brilliant. gordon brown, you are a twat. meet labour, the new tories.

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don't strive for happiness, it'll make you miserable. just be content.

i cannot believe they've stooped so low,well actually......spineless greedy bastards in power for years surrounded by yes men.......no surprises there

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now,then!

the country's like a rudderless ship, well, has been for a while. I wouldn't vote for anyone at the moment. worrying thing is you can't see an end to it either. crime, nhs, pensions, going into a recession by the looks of it. Personally i think we are starting to pay back the massive costs for the....ahem, war on terror, one big massive mistake that nobody wanted but the american and british goverments, and look whats happening to both countrys.

You quite right Boss, no surprises there; long time ago Labour was a socialist party, looking after the needs of the poor and the working classes; now I don't know who is who anymore, Conservative or Labour they are the same shit.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that this is a shameful and ill-thought out decision (and as a part-time teacher I am directly affected by this) - I cannot agree with the comment made by mph that everyone earning under 15k is taxed so it 'can be given to the middle classes'. That is a foolish thing to say and directly implies that this money is being taken away from some and being given directly to others. Whilst I do not consider myself middle class - I guess from our professions my hubby and I are middle earners. However - anyone with kids to feed and cars to run and council tax to pay doesn't have it easy in the UK - we are one of the most heavily taxed nations in the western world and we more than pay our bit to be part of society.

most on less than £15k are worse off, those on £20k+ are better off. so where's the money come from to pay for it? you're entitled to your opinion and i'm entitled to mine.

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don't strive for happiness, it'll make you miserable. just be content.

If you're a teacher, you are middle class.

We already live in Rip-off Britain and this is just another tightning of the thumb-screws on those with low wages .It's really unfair .

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"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

All the girls who work on the retail side where i work are on minimum wage so i presume the rise they just got off the goverment will now be taken back by the goverment?? All this talk of class reminds me of something.

just because I'm feeling mischievous ... The abolition of the 10p rate will affect those without children. You breeders have it soooo easy

Don't agree with 10p rate going as think it signaled very clearly that labour was still about social justice. Sad day when labour continued to woo 'middle England' over the people who do the low paid work we need done. In part its the changing face of those who represent us in parliament - with few exceptions. How I miss dennis skinner, tam dyell and tony benn. I cried when i heard eric heffer died. Never thought I'd read Roy hattersley to find him left wing in comparison to this bunch of self serving egotist!

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The way your face could light the bitter dark of every street
In every town I'll ever go

We will miss Gwyneth Dunwoody in these parts. She really cared about her constituents.

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Love is so hard to find
And even harder to define

Let's not go too far down the class route - whilst I may be a teacher I retrained at the age of 40 and am the daughter of a dockie and a factory girl who lived in council housing until my late teens, left school at 16 and never went to Uni - does a profession automatically change your class status?

However - this is about taxation which crosses all classes and cats and books is being mischevious indeed to say that abolition of the 10p tax band affects those without kids- it's nothing at all to do with that but I'll let you off as (I think) you are a Pompey fan

I certainly fall into the wage bracket that means I'm paying more tax from now on and feel that those who traditionally work for low pay such as hairdressers and restaurant workers are being cruelly hit - together with the likes of students trying to work to pay their way through Uni. Let's just be clear though that this extra tax burden is in no way finding its way back in to the pockets of 'middle England'.

The Labour Party is a disgrace, Blair and his lackeys took for granted all of the people who kept voting Labour in the hope that the rank evil of Thatcherism would one day be destroyed. What of course we got was Blair finishing the job Thatcher started and Major didn't have the majority to continue.

In all of this I have clung to what I have taken as genuine attempts to alleviate poverty (sop more like) and to raise standards of living among those on low wages. So 10p tax rate and minimum wage have shone a little amidst the gloss, the war mongering and the scramble for multiple homes and photos with the rich and famous. This has come at the expense of a lot of patronising about diet, alcohol and cigarettes and the belief among these immunised MPs that it is ok to laugh at the problems that the destruction of industry has caused and that somehow the only useful thing they can do is rattle on about crime.

When there was industry in this country there were proper jobs with real money and that had a knock on influence on the rest of the economy and also on the standards of behaviour in communities. What's come in its wake has been service industry jobs that are poorly paid and where pride and job satisfaction are replaced with humiliation and lack od security.

MPs are panicking because they'll lose their seats. What they should be doing is arguing like fury and doing things for the people who always voted Labour (Torys always look after their own, but Labour pander to the rich as well). Of course many of those who always voted Labour don't bother to vote now or in some cases have turned to the BNP. With Labour's record in dealing with poverty, housing, education in the community and for the community not for elitist business, doesn't really address the needs of the people who have always voted Labour.

I believe that voting should be compulsory, yeah spoil the paper but at least turn out. That might seem extreme but I see it as a tribute to those who lost their lives, their livelihoods and the right to live in this country for the sake of a vote. We take voting for granted in this country but look at those countries who have queues when they win the chance to vote for the first time. It does matter. It is easy to be cynical and I am that very man and find it harder to vote for anyone, rather I am voting against the worst. The differences are minimal now but to allow voting to return to the province of the rich elite again is something we should guard against.

My solution for finding the extra money that's needed to make up the difference in the budget and stop the damage of changing the tax rate is to place an additional tax on City bonuses, to increase the Council Tax on multiple home owners and to make it financially unrewarding to "by to let" thus artificially pushing up the housing market prices and turning the issue of having a roof over your head which should be a basic right in a rich country as a means for exploitation.

Rant over.

here here, well said Exapno

yes, yes, yes!

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don't strive for happiness, it'll make you miserable. just be content.