Which is better? Earning £17,500 a year, in the 20/25% tax bands, with 5% NI, 15% VAT, £500 Poll Tax and 50% tax on fuel or earning £19,000 a year in the 10/22% tax bands, with 6% NI, 17.5% VAT, £1000 Council Tax and 75% tax on fuel? Oh, and don't forget the lack of mortgage relief, married couples' allowance, the abolition of student grants (if you have kids of university age) and so on.
Maybe you have more of an income in a purely superficial numerical form, but you have less spending power as a result of increases in taxation.
NI has gone up 1%. Our £17,500 a year, 1995 man is paying £875 in NI. Our £19,000 a year, 2005 man is paying £1,140 a year in NI.
1995 - £17,500 gross. -£875 NI. -£600 @ 20%. -£3,625 @ 25% = £12,400. Take-home pcm = £1,033.33 net.
2005 - £19,000 gross. -£1,140 NI. -£202 @ 10%. -£2,691.7 @ 22% = £14,966.3. Take-home pcm = £1,247.19 net.
10 years ago, petrol was, roughly 69.9p/litre. This morning I filled up at 83.9 (and I hear the average is 86.5). Say I drive 7,000 miles a year at a rough average of 30mpg - that's about 1,084 litres of petrol required annually. This costs me £909 a year now but would have cost £757 a year a decade ago. I have to work an extra two days a year (assuming the £17,500 example above) to do my driving.
1995-man - £1,033.33pcm net - £63.08 petrol = £970.25pcm
2005-man - £1,247.19pcm net - £75.75 petrol = £1,171.44pcm
Now, let's hack out the Poll Tax/Council Tax...
1995-man - £41.66pcm = £928.59pcm
2005-man - £83.32pcm = £1,088.12pcm
So, the 2005-man is earning just £160 a month more - about 15% - than his 1995-man counterpart net, after major expenses. But guess what? He earns about 15% more than him gross anyway. And with 2.5% more VAT, applied to more things than a decade ago, his money gives him less spending power than the "poorer" man a decade ago. Let's not forget also that this doesn't take into account the inflation over the past decade which makes the 2005-man even poorer, comparatively.
"What about the unemployed?" I hear. "3 million under Major, 1.1 million under Blair!".
Yep, Blair et al. have proven very good at fudging figures. Have more than £5,000 in savings? Well, you can't claim unemployment benefit. We'll pay your stamp for you, for 12 weeks. If you haven't found a job by then, we'll retrain you with a valuable HNC from the local college, ignoring the fact that you need money every week just to eat.
If you don't have a claim for unemployment benefit and aren't on "Jobseeker's Allowance" for the 12 weeks you're allowed it, you aren't counted in the figures. Remember the story earlier this week? There's 1.1 million people classed as "NEETs" ("Not in Education, Employed or Training"). These people do not appear on jobless lists, so that's an instant doubling of the 1.1 million unemployed figure. And that's just the start.
What possible reason could you have for not voting Labour? The fact you're getting ripped off for zero tangible benefit. Although it's hard to prove it with numbers, every service which we rely upon government funding for (but shouldn't - that's a different story) has got markedly worse in the last decade - hospitals, police, fire services, roads, transport infrastructure and so on. I'll tell you what HAS increased though - from £34,085 in 1996 to £55,118 in 2002 (with an unlimited travel allowance - one claimed £36,000). MP's salaries. In fact, the AVERAGE claimed by MPs in the UK including travel and stationary expenses PER YEAR is a staggering £175,922. I'll remind you that there's 659 MPs, meaning that the basic salary allowance for Westminster has increased by £13.9 MILLION in the last decade, with the average allowance for MPs stands at a truely awesome ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN MILLION POUNDS a year.
Just take a second to mull that figure over. Mr. Average is able to buy less things for himself since Labour arose, but MPs have taken £13.9 million a year increase in salary since the last election and £116 million a year in allowances.
You have "absolutely no reason not to" vote Labour?
Also, Veritas are a bit of a joke, but Kilroy-Silk is a pretty persistant man, and he is standing as far as I know 
