Out of interest, why do you care about the government deficit? Why do you think it matters?

It's massive for the future of any country, business or household. If what's coming in is less than going out you cannot run forever! My take on it is if the country is reducing its borrowing and spending to try help balance the books it's a good thing in the long run. A difficult task as so many things needed to be cut but as long as sensible things are also cut ie the millions that was being sent to India to help there poorest while the top develop space programs and increase there military spending then it's surely a good thing

Nice to know the ignorant and ill informed are still spouting rubbish.

I am currently working in Norfolk.

Working with the most disadvantaged . Working with loads of immigrants mainly Poles, Lithiuanians and Rumanians.

This includes approximately 20 Rumanians all living in one house. 14 adults and 6 children.

The funny thing is that all the adults are working. Everyone and they share the childcare out between them.

Unfortunately they are all likely to be made homeless soon as the accommodation is overcrowded. The dodgy landlord was forced to take action because the house is unfit for human habitation.

They all have limited funds because they all earn either the minimum wage ( or less) they are all on Zero hours contracts.
Many working on the land picking the fruit and veg that you eat because no one else will work in those conditions for so little money.

The others work for the largest poultry producer in the country. I will give you a clue the fat who makes your turkey twizzlers.

They actually earn enough to keep them off the bread line. None of them are eligible for ANY public funds ie tax breaks housing benefit etc BECAUSE Zero hours contracts dont count as official work to allow you to claim any benefits.

The thing i find funny about it is that in the fields where they all work their are loads of political posters up. |They are all Blue and purple.

Guess what?
the people benefitting from exploiting them and making profits from them are all UKIP and Conservative party candidates/ supporters.

Amazing isnt it that those who argue to get thick anti immigrant voters to vote for them are the same ones who bring the immigrants in give them jobs and make money out of employing them.

Ukip and the Tories slogan should be , "immigrants out except for those we can exploit and make money out of so we can keep or land and support tax cuts for the rich"

=#0000FFFunny that AdamHuddsGiant and Brearley so easily fall for the anti immigration, wave the union jack , im alright jack approach of UKIP and the Tories.

I could understand it if they worked in the city of London and were loaded ( maybe they could give Ken a hand with the Giants)

A reason why some of my friends and many local lads who work in factories cant get wage rises is because the companies just employ foreign workers who will come and work for peanuts, so when they ask for a rise they get told to get lost and leave if you dont like it as they can employ someone else cheaper.

i dont blame the foreign workers for coming looking for work though cant blame them.

the fat cat companies must love it paying out wages on the cheap, minimum wage needs to be raised?

all the parties just tell us what we want to hear i suppose.

Ok Durham fair nice to know I am ignorant, easy to be informed if your probably working in a situation like you are but I am not. I am 27 year old manufacturer with a partner two kids and a house. My views are based on what I read, hear and see!
Zero hours should be scrapped with out a doubt.
But the problem is that the belief that Britain has a gold opportunity for loads of immigrants as you say isn't there. I don't know the individual story's of each family that comes but there must be a belief that things are better here than where they are. And that isn't the case because the opportunitys are not there the infrastructure isn't there and the more people that are allowed to come over the more stretched the system becomes?
Immigration is an issue in Britain because it can't cope, which is leading to a poor life quality for some of those that come over!

safe to say you will be voting Labour then durham.. at least i will be voting not like most people my age who just arent interested and dont have a clue whats going on.

I will second that! I only have 15 years to go on when I was aware of what was going on in politicos the start labour was in and things went wrong, conservatives in and things appear to be getting better?

But the Tories plans are to create a very cheap poorly educated workforce based on zero hours contracts, no employment rights and low wages ( they often refer to it as flexible workforce or flexible working conditions) They want to do that for ALL british workers what they are doing now is blaming foreigners so that people like you vote for them and then they will shaft you after they win.

Simple problem for voters! Are things like! Google education the top one is pro conservative states 18 billion to be spent on schools!
Second one anti conservative 10 percent cut in education as it will not be spared from inflation.
It's crazy to say but it obvious why ten million are expected not to vote! Every camp has pros and cons and exploits the others failings or lacking areas!
Problem is cuts will be made and more money is needed in because we have over spent and borrowed leaving a massive national debt!
I want it simple a good work market so I can get a job and keep it and if I lose it find another, if I fall and break my leg the Nhs will fix it, and know in old age I will be looked after! Simple things!

What so many fail to realise is if immigrants are stopped coming into the country to work those many are going to be worse off. If businesses have to pay workers more they will not be able to compete in the global market, and if they sell domestically it impacts on the pockets of those who live here. Prices go up!
Not to mention the fact that unemployment will increase as companies who can't compete slash their workforce or go out of business. Those that can still continue in business may decide not to pay more- so wages go down.

Since WWII, of the trophies that really matter, we have won the Challenge Cup in 1953, the Championship in 1962 and the [icoup de grâce[/i - the 1993 European Cup - under the Conservatives and the League Leaders Shield in 2013 under the Coalition. The only major trophy - unless we are including the 2002 Buddies Cup - we have won under Labour in that time is the 1949 Championship.

So for me the choice is obvious. Vote Fartown. Vote Tory.

How do you define an idiot.

Someone who quotes Ronald Reagan and thinks that makes some sort of convincing arguement

Ah but the most important win as far as I am concerned more recently is the divisional one Premiership title in 1997. Labour was in power.

Is that how you define an 'idiot', Durham Giant?

I wonder whether an 'idiot' would be able to use grammar or Key Stage One level punctuation correctly. Quoting a post on here is perhaps a little trickier but I'm sure most 'idiots' would be able to do it. And who but an 'idiot' would brazenly suggest that the mere act of quoting Reagan, or anyone else for that matter, implies that the quoter believes it to be a 'convincing arguement [sic'?

I have had the Reagan quote as my signature for approximately a decade. It didn't seem to bother you overtly when you were taking a free ticket from me. And I thought it was those on the right who put profit before principles.

I must say, I didn't expect I'd have to add the caveat that my post was intended as light-hearted humour.

No hard feelings, and a belated Happy May Day!

A fair point Jools, but may I respectfully point out that the season began in January, so it could be argued that the ground work was done when the Tories were in power...

You can suggest it but given that hull beat us twice in the league that season, and labour won their landslide victory in May, I respectfully beg to differ....

yes we are around the same age , conservatives seem to have got the economy back on track, albeit slowly, to go back to Labour would be a big risk after the mess they made last time they were in.

its going to be very close, milliband may very well be the next prime minister.

i didnt like nigel farage at first but after listening to him he does actually talk some sense and says what alot of the country thinks... but they seem to have only one thing in their manifesto and thats about immigration which isnt enough.

people who say that these immigrants pick the potatoes out of the field that we eat... what happened 10, 15 years ago even longer, did they just stay in the ground and farming stop?! no.

Anyway two things are probably best not discussed on a forum... religion and politics as its just causes endless arguments.

I am 71 now and lived through many changes of government. The thing that stands out most over that time is that every time the Labour party have been in government, they have always and I mean always left the finances of the country in absolute chaos and practically bankrupt.
The country can`t keep borrowing money willy nilly to fund benefits which is one of the main drains on our finances.
The city will be jittery if Labour get in and shares will drop like a stone which sadly reflects on jobs and the economy.
I would personally hope that UKIP does well and forms a coalition with the Conservatives.
But if we vote Conservative we can keep Milliband out who will only be able to govern with the help of the SNP rabble north of the border, and the SNP would certainly be wagging the Milliband dog.
Don`t let the country be dragged back down again, things are slowly improving. Don`t throw it away with Labour vote.

Ukip! Oh my good god.
That bunch of bigots! The day that happens I'm out of the country. .... Well I may as well seeing as they will be turfing my family out anyway!

Always good to see when people have a sound knowledge of all the facts. The country's borrowing has escalated in the last 5 years.

Where were you in the Thatcher years, she did a great job and we're still paying for it




Her and her cronies destroyed the Coal and Steel Industry and blamed it all on the workforce and the Unions, only now are we learning the truth of the long list of lies and deciept she created to achieve this. Once she'd achieved this she declared war on the rest of the workforce and British Industry duly went down the drain. She sold off all our utilities for a fraction of their worth, another thing we're paying heavily for now, and squandered the money rather than re-invest in British Industry. The glorious "Thatcher years" started the great North/South divide and that clown Cameron is happy following his heroines disasterous policies. The only tail wagging is/was done by Thatcher/Cameron looking after their posh, millionaire mates


As for UKIP , just a bunch of Hoorah Henry racist bigots


As for the City getting the "Jitters" if Labour returns, despite what Cameron and the Tory press would like you to believe they got us into this mess in the first place


For Cameron "the workers friend"





and his party of rich out of touch Eton educated buffoons read "Thatcher returns" Don't know about you but I'm not too keen on this Tory ideal of an "I'm alright Jack" society


The Welfare “Reform” Act 2012 marked the continuation of a wholesale dismantling of the welfare state. Cameron has taken up where Thatcher left off. It’s utterly callous and it also steals money from people in work. The unemployed are blamed for unemployment, at a time when Cameron’s Government created a double-dip recession. Thatcher also blamed the unemployed for the unemployment that her policy choices created, but not as viciously as Cameron’s administration has. Living standards are being driven down deliberately while tax cuts are gifted to the rich. Education is slowly being privatised, any remaining pretence of meritocratic principles has been well and truly bludgeoned and our gifted young people are being priced out of university. Local democracy is shackled, Councils (and subsequently, public services,) are turned into a queue of hostages for Eric Pickles’ cuts

All this started with Thatcher, who was certainly behind radical proposals to end free healthcare and schooling in Britain. We know this from the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) Report, that was encouraged and commissioned by Thatcher and Howe in 1982, which shows a radical, politically toxic plan to dismantle the welfare state, to introduce education vouchers, ending the state funding of higher education, to freeze welfare benefits and to introduce an insurance-based health service, ending free health care provision of the NHS. One of the architects of the report was Lord Wasserman, he is now one of Cameron’s advisors

The Government asserts that its welfare “reform” strategy is aimed at breaking the cycle of “worklessness” and dependency on the welfare system in the UK’s poorest families. There’s no such thing as “worklessness”, it’s simply a blame apportioning word, made up by the Tories to hide the fact that they have destroyed the employment market, as they always do. The “reforms” (cuts) consist of 39 individual changes to welfare payments, eligibility, sanctions and timescales for payment and are intended to save the exchequer around £18 billion. How remarkable that the Department of Work and Pensions claim that such cuts to welfare spending will reduce poverty

George Osborne’s “plan A” isn’t about economics: it amounts to little more than a rehashed Thatcherite ideological agenda of stripping away public services and welfare, deregulation and labour market “flexibility”, and an assault on the rights of employees, and Labour’s historic equality legislation. The Tory demand for a “nighchman state” is both ill-conceived and completely irrelevant to Britain’s economic circumstances. It’s a complete abdication of government responsibility, democratic obligations and duty towards its citizens. The Coalition have borrowed more in 4 years than labour did in 13 and have NOTHING to show for it except a handful of wealthier millionaires. And the return of absolute poverty. We know that austerity was intentionally imposed by the Coalition, using a feigned panic over the budget deficit to front an opportunistic vulture capitalist approach to stripping our public assets. With the Coalition in power for 4 years, the deficit has apparently receded in importance


[uTories, the more things change, the more they stay the same.[/u
1 Million people using food banks
Debt higher than under Labour
Hundreds of thousands on Zero hour contracts
3.5 million children living in poverty
Royal Mail "sell off" cost taxpayers £1billion
£3 billiontax cut for the top one percent of earners
Well David, your darling "Maggie" would be proud of you, we're well on the way to your promised land of "Victorian values" perhaps he and his cronies can re-open the workhouses for you

I know who I WON'T be voting for

WOW!!





Unfortunately the truth gets buried by the mostly Tory press - and 1825 days of the continual Tory one-liner "Labour got us into this mess". People might like to read how the [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32549892?SThisFB&fb_ref=DefaultBBC explained the 'mess'[/url.

So if Tories and Labour have both always left the country a Sh!thole, why has the electorate never voted anyone else in apart from the major opposition party ?. If we're all so disappointed by the last government that party oversaw why do we think that they will be 'better' than they're opponents, or even themselves next time ?.

My take ...they're all as bad as each other and act like little kids name calling in a playground, but when a 'new kid' arrives eg - BNP, UKIP, LibDems to a point, everyone gangs up on them too so we are permanently going to be going round in the same vicious circle election after election as long as time prevails !!!!!.