Ukip launch 2015 Manifesto

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32312687
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-04-15/u...o-key-pledges/

Ukip manifesto: EU, veterans, and an £18bn 'tax giveaway' among key pledges

Party launches a 'fully costed' manifesto for the General Election in target seat of Thurrock

UKIP would make working people better off through a "low-tax revolution", Nigel Farage has said as he launched his party's election manifesto. It would keep workers on the minimum wage out of tax, raise the 40p tax rate threshold to £55,000, introduce a new 30p tax band and scrap inheritance tax.

He said UKIP was the only party with a "credible plan" for immigration and a positive vision for the country. The Conservatives have said there is a "£37bn black hole" in UKIP's proposals. But Mr Farage said his was the only party with fully costed plans, which have been verified by independent economic think tank, The Centre for Economic and Business Research.

The party's proposals also include an increase of up to £3bn extra a year in NHS funding, a commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence and a five-year ban on unskilled immigration. UKIP, which wants to quit the EU, has said it will hold an in/out referendum "as soon as possible" in the next Parliament.

Mr Farage said his was the only party which had the "self confidence and belief in the nation" that the UK should govern itself, make its own laws and negotiate its own international trade deals.

Key Ukip manifesto pledges:

• In/out referendum on EU membership "as soon as possible"
• Five-year ban on unskilled migrants coming in to the UK
• A points-based system for other migrants
• Allow comprehensive state schools to be able to apply to become grammar schools
• £12bn for the NHS
• £5.2bn for social care budgets
• Defence spending above Nato's 2% of GDP target
• Cutting foreign aid by £9bn a year
• Create 6,000 police, prison and border jobs for people leaving the armed forces
• Build a dedicated military hospital
• Waive stamp duty on new homes worth up to £250,000 built on brownfield sites
• Cut business rates for small businesses
• Scrap hospital parking charges
• End sham marriages by restoring the 'primary purpose' rule
• Bin the HS2 project
• People will be able to claim pension, at a lower rate, from the age of 65
• Repeal the climate change act
• Increase carer's allowance from £62.10 a week to £73.10 a week
• Scrap bedroom tax

'Big tax giveaway'

Setting out the party's election offerings at a hotel in Thurrock, Essex, the UKIP leader said politics had become dominated by giant corporate business interests while ordinary people had been "left behind" with "nobody to speak for them". But he added: "UKIP has a plan, we genuinely want to make working people better off. And we will do that by leading the charge and making the argument for a low tax revolution.

"We genuinely want to make work pay and for people to have incentives to do better. And we believe that will unleash a kind of economic dynamism that has not been seen in this country in a long time." Mr Farage said he was proposing an £18bn "big tax giveaway", paid for by cutting £32bn a year from government spending. This would including cutting foreign aid spending, leaving the EU, scrapping the HS2 rail link and changing the Barnett funding formula for the nations.

Watch: Telegraph journalist booed at Ukip manifesto launch

Don't agree with it all but boy is there more common sense in just one page compared to the two main parties. I know a friend of mine who considers himself left wing has been won round by them and is voting for them in May... as is another who wasn't interested in politics until now.

Nice try by the Telegraph journalist but that bird doesn't fly anymore mate. Full manifesto can be found via http://www.ukip.org/manifesto2015

Thoughts?

[FlyingJesus]

Completely fails to show how these things can be afforded, and pretends to be about making all spending essential but states that they want to spend £3bn on building a palace.... Some nice ideas but none that can actually be enacted, just a load of empty rhetoric and what-ifs. None of the others are much better but they aren't pretending that you can magically cut tax and increase spending at the same time just by closing two projects. Not to mention all the obvious associated costs of setting up and administrating all these new processes and promises

[-:Undertaker:-]

Completely fails to show how these things can be afforded, and pretends to be about making all spending essential but states that they want to spend £3bn on building a palace....

Where is this palace in the manifesto? First I have heard of such plans.

If you are talking about the multi-billion refurb of the Palace of Westminster, that's not Ukip policy that is happening anyway. And so it should.

Some nice ideas but none that can actually be enacted, just a load of empty rhetoric and what-ifs. None of the others are much better but they aren't pretending that you can magically cut tax and increase spending at the same time just by closing two projects.

Um, yes you can. It's a common economic misconception that cutting taxes must be 'paid for' in cuts to spending. Not always. The monetarist approach in the 1980s after all under Reagan and Thatcher had taxes cut back, but over all spending wasn't drastically reduced at all in the British case only in certain budgets. The truth is that by keeping money in the productive private sector, growth takes place faster which then increases the tax take from increased productivity.

At least this has been costed - whether right or wrong is another - but I haven't heard anything about the Tories or Labour manifestos being costed. And besides, most of the spending promises are clearly being funded by the end of EU contributions (£8bn to 15bn), foreign aid (£10bn), no HS2 (£50bn), and the scrapping of the Climate Change Act which costs us a massive £18bn a year. That's £38bn and HS2's £50bn saved right there = £88bn saved.

The saving of £88bn dwarfs any of the spending promises they've made.. so how are you coming to the conclusion that it doesn't add up when it does?

Not to mention all the obvious associated costs of setting up and administrating all these new processes and promises

Whether they'd do all of this is another thing, but hey it's worth a try and better than what the other are offering.

Better to cut wasteful budgets/close entire useless departments than to cut pensions, raise taxes or cut benefits.

[FlyingJesus]

You've literally just given me a screenshot of the page that shows where this ridiculous £3bn spending is suggested, and even showed half of the sentence in that screenshot


Didn't say just cutting taxes, I said cutting taxes and increasing spending.

HS2 is stupid and expensive and I wholly oppose it, but its costs are a one-off thing, not a yearly saving. A single bonus of £50bn is obviously great and something I would like to see happen, but isn't something you can claim as sustainable savings.

Closing a couple of stupid departments and setting up much bigger, much more active ones in their place is not saving any money. Again it's a good idea to get rid of pointless quangos but pretending that doing so will make way for huge projects is nonsense. Cutting non-essential costs and keeping everything else as it is would be saving money, replacing these with something more expensive is not saving anything and is not in any way pragmatic - especially when you're already planning to use all of that money restoring a palace

[-:Undertaker:-]

You've literally just given me a screenshot of the page that shows where this ridiculous £3bn spending is suggested, and even showed half of the sentence in that screenshot

Oh, well that is nothing new. Westminster is heading for a multi-bn refurb anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30137334

Hardly building a new Palace for Lord Nigel. Restoring our beautiful parliament building or £3bn for the India Space Programme? It's a no-brainer.

Didn't say just cutting taxes, I said cutting taxes and increasing spending.

Spending isn't being increased, any spending increases are coming out of the savings mentioned.

HS2 is stupid and expensive and I wholly oppose it, but its costs are a one-off thing, not a yearly saving. A single bonus of £50bn is obviously great and something I would like to see happen, but isn't something you can claim as sustainable savings.

If HS2 takes 2 years to build, that is £2bn a year saved from projected spending.

Closing a couple of stupid departments and setting up much bigger, much more active ones in their place is not saving any money. Again it's a good idea to get rid of pointless quangos but pretending that doing so will make way for huge projects is nonsense.

It depends entirely how the departments are winded down. Often with governments, they come into office claiming to want to abolish certain quangos and do - but set it up again just under a different name. Whether Ukip would be any different at this remains to be seen and I would judge on the record, but ejecting these pointless departments out of their Whitehall palaces and abolishing things like the Climate Change Act (£18bn a year) would mean a lot less administration.

And what huge projects? Most of this is closing projects and simply refunding the money into already existing departments (NHS, grammars).

Cutting non-essential costs and keeping everything else as it is would be saving money, replacing these with something more expensive is not saving anything and is not in any way pragmatic - especially when you're already planning to use all of that money restoring a palace

You keep going on about restoring a palace which is going to happen anyway, but even if we take away the £3bn for the Houses of Parliament you still have £85bn to play with as I added up earlier: and that's without all the quangos I would hope the party would close.

It is all costed as I say, but whether the party would implement properly is another thing. I'll take the chance.

[FlyingJesus]

Oh, well that is nothing new. Westminster is heading for a multi-bn refurb anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30137334

Hardly building a new Palace for Lord Nigel. Restoring our beautiful parliament building or £3bn for the India Space Programme? It's a no-brainer.

Didn't say they were building it for him, the point is that it's a huge expense which UKIP want to pay for by closing down departments - thus meaning we don't actually gain anything from their closure

Spending isn't being increased

Flat out lie, not even sure why you'd say such a thing when there are lots of points in your very first post that speak of spending increases

And what huge projects? Most of this is closing projects and simply refunding the money into already existing departments (NHS, grammars).

Everything to do with their immigration plans. It's not something you can just wave a wand and have happen, it would need massive amounts of administration and would obviously have huge costs in setting up and running. Doesn't sound like you've actually read the manifesto yourself

You keep going on about restoring a palace which is going to happen anyway, but even if we take away the £3bn for the Houses of Parliament you still have £85bn to play with as I added up earlier: and that's without all the quangos I would hope the party would close.

Still pretending that one-off costs are the same as yearly running costs... if you plan to spend an extra £17.2bn a year on just two parts of the budget, plus set up an expensive immigration system that keeps workers out of the country, plus cut a load of taxes, plus create a random 6000 jobs, plus pay for all these changes in the first place, a one-off £50bn (minus the costs of sorting out what happens to any work already put in) isn't going to do a lot. By your own admission, the actual saving is about £2bn a year, so you absolutely do not have 85 as a total to work with. The projections are just completely unfounded and costings are massively incomplete

[AgnesIO]

• Support “age-appropriate” sex and relationship education at secondary level, but not for primary school children. Support right of parents to home-school their children. Support and funding for free schools.
• A commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence initially, looking to increase it substantially after that.
  
  • Increase for what, exactly?
  
  
• Allow British businesses to employ British citizens first.
  
  • Not understanding this, you could quite easily do this already - I disagree with someone getting a job solely on their nationality.
  
  
• A cut in business rates for small businesses. Retain zero-hours contracts but subject them to a binding code of conduct.
  
  • Retain zero hour contracts? Brilliant. Party for the people.
  
  
• Cut by £9bn, prioritising disaster relief and schemes to provide water and inoculation against preventable diseases.Close the Department for International Development (DfID) and merge its essential functions with the Foreign Office.
  
  • Disagree with this entirely.
  
  
• Scrapping of HS2 project. Maintenance of concessionary bus passes and requirement that foreign trucks contribute to upkeep of UK roads and fuel duty. Ensure that speed cameras are used as deterrent and not as “revenue raiser”.
  
  • We need modern infrastructure for a modern world. After all, the bloody roads are all filled with immigrants (according to Farage) - got to get up and down the country some how! Having said that, I still cannot get my head around how long it is going to take to build it (nor the cost, for that matter!).
  
  
• Repeal Climate Change Act. Encourage redevelopment of British power stations.
  
  • Building a future for our children. Or not.

Disagree entirely with all of the above points.

[scottish]

• Support “age-appropriate” sex and relationship education at secondary level, but not for primary school children. Support right of parents to home-school their children. Support and funding for free schools.
• A commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence initially, looking to increase it substantially after that.
  
  • Increase for what, exactly?
  
  
  Increase for our defence
  
• Allow British businesses to employ British citizens first.
  
  • Not understanding this, you could quite easily do this already - I disagree with someone getting a job solely on their nationality.
  
  
  You couldn't though as you would be seen as discriminating against the other person
  
• A cut in business rates for small businesses. Retain zero-hours contracts but subject them to a binding code of conduct.
  
  • Retain zero hour contracts? Brilliant. Party for the people.
  
  
• Cut by £9bn, prioritising disaster relief and schemes to provide water and inoculation against preventable diseases.Close the Department for International Development (DfID) and merge its essential functions with the Foreign Office.
  
  • Disagree with this entirely.
  
  
  Why
  
• Scrapping of HS2 project. Maintenance of concessionary bus passes and requirement that foreign trucks contribute to upkeep of UK roads and fuel duty. Ensure that speed cameras are used as deterrent and not as “revenue raiser”.
  
  • We need modern infrastructure for a modern world. After all, the bloody roads are all filled with immigrants (according to Farage) - got to get up and down the country some how! Having said that, I still cannot get my head around how long it is going to take to build it (nor the cost, for that matter!).
  
  
• Repeal Climate Change Act. Encourage redevelopment of British power stations.
  
  • Building a future for our children. Or not.

Disagree entirely with all of the above points.

okay

[dbgtz]

• Support “age-appropriate” sex and relationship education at secondary level, but not for primary school children. Support right of parents to home-school their children. Support and funding for free schools.
• A commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence initially, looking to increase it substantially after that.
  
  • Increase for what, exactly?
  
  
  On the point of 2%, that's the NATO guideline percentage. For the rest, well I suspect so that we actually have up to date resources (which many in the military have complained about) but obviously I cannot say.
  
• Allow British businesses to employ British citizens first.
  
  • Not understanding this, you could quite easily do this already - I disagree with someone getting a job solely on their nationality.
  
  
• A cut in business rates for small businesses. Retain zero-hours contracts but subject them to a binding code of conduct.
  
  • Retain zero hour contracts? Brilliant. Party for the people.
  
  
  Zero hour contracts are actually useful for some people so outright abolishing it would probably be worse.
  
• Cut by £9bn, prioritising disaster relief and schemes to provide water and inoculation against preventable diseases.Close the Department for International Development (DfID) and merge its essential functions with the Foreign Office.
  
  • Disagree with this entirely.
  
  
• Scrapping of HS2 project. Maintenance of concessionary bus passes and requirement that foreign trucks contribute to upkeep of UK roads and fuel duty. Ensure that speed cameras are used as deterrent and not as “revenue raiser”.
  
  • We need modern infrastructure for a modern world. After all, the bloody roads are all filled with immigrants (according to Farage) - got to get up and down the country some how! Having said that, I still cannot get my head around how long it is going to take to build it (nor the cost, for that matter!).
  
  
  I don't think anybody is opposed to upgrading the railways in general, just that the actual gain from it is so small compared to the cost of the project. Many would say that it would be better to upgrade internet speeds across the country much more quickly.
  
• Repeal Climate Change Act. Encourage redevelopment of British power stations.
  
  • Building a future for our children. Or not.

Disagree entirely with all of the above points.

Just some notes I also decided to make.

[AgnesIO]

Just some notes I also decided to make.

I disagree with 'substantial' increases - where is this funding coming from?

Zero hour contracts are bad news for the vast majority of people.

Upgrading the railways, however you do it, will cost an absolute fortune. Infrastructure projects, unfortunately, cost huge amounts of money. Not to mention the years of delays required to 'upgrade' existing railways. If you live near London, you would surely understand the sheer chaos that occurs even for minor maintenance...

okay

The bit that concerns me regarding the defense budget is the 'substantial' increase.

You can employ whoever is best for the job. Employing somebody because of the nationality is ridiculous.

I support Foreign Aid, that's why.