Well Britain's Stuffed That Up.

In 2010 the UK had a coalition government made up of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat (Lib Dem) parties imposed upon it. This was the UK's first coalition government since the World War Two government of national unity.

Dominated by the Conservative Party this coalition was led by Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor (Finance Minister) George Osborne. It is the sort of government that you would not wish on your worst enemy.

Cameron and Osborne's big plan was to slash public spending to levels below that of the 1930's. This was pure fantasy land economics.

The UK has what is known as a consumer economy. Basically it relies on people to have enough spare money to by luxuries that they don't really need. Years of frozen wages, inflation and tax rises means that the spare money is simply not available causing the entire economic model to unravel.

Since roughly 2013 the Conservatives have been forced to quietly abandon this plan. Although I will need to check my notes the Conservatives claimed the UK's borrowing would eliminated first by 2015 then by 2017 then by 2020 then by 2022 etc.

With the Conservative Party having to abandon their own economic plans it was almost certain that the Labour Party would win the 2015 General Election. However by some miracle the Conservatives managed to win an outright majority meaning they no longer needed the support of the Lib Dems.

This bizarre outcome was almost entirely the result of the extremely damaging effect the British media's obsession with TV debates is having on British democracy.

During the 2015 campaign Labour focused really on this issues. However in the debates Cameron claimed that voting for Labour would result in a coalition between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). Depressingly voters ended up believing him.

Following their 2015 defeat the Labour Party imploded. They replaced Ed Miliband with Jeremy Corbyn as leader and replaced policy with just incoherent ranting. Under Corbyn a hallmark of Labour campaigning has been senior figures appearing to launch a new policy and then quickly revealing they have absolutely no understanding of the policy they are launching.

In June 2016 Cameron and Osborne's seeming prank against Britain ended. Cameron resigned as leader and was replaced by Theresa May. This marked a shift in Conservative Party away from the extremism of Cameron and Osborne back to the political centre ground and, dare I say, sanity.

A prime example of this was the new Conservative government's budget of March 8th (8/3/17). This introduced plans to raise National Insurance (a form of payroll tax) Contributions for self-employed workers.

Historically self-employed workers have paid lower National Insurance Contributions because in retirement they have received a lower state pension. This was changed in 2016 so self-employed workers now receive the same state pension of everyone else. With them continuing to pay a lower National Insurance Contributions this effectively saw self-employed workers robbing everyone else in the economy to pay for their luxury.

Classification as self-employed for tax purposes has also become a major form of tax avoidance. People set up a company of which they are the sole share holder and register as self-employed. However that company will only have one customer - the company that would normally be considered the individual's actual employer.

The rise in National Insurance Contributions was accompanied by changes to the way that this type of small businesses are taxed. It reduced the amount of tax free dividends that can be taken out of this type of company and increased the rate at which further dividends are taxed from 9% to 10%.

Due to the costs of registering a business this type of tax scam is normally carried out by extremely wealthy people who would normally be paying the 40% rate of income tax. Therefore the effect of this self-employed tax scam is to allow the rich to be subsidised by the poor.

The changes of the March budget were also intended to tackle the social problems of the growing so-called; "Gig Economy."

This sees companies like Uber and Deliveroo force employees to register as self-employed so the company doesn't need to pay National Insurance Contributions, sick pay or holiday pay. The very low paid workers really do need things like sick pay and holiday pay and this new Gig Economy has almost overnight done away with more then a hundred years of struggle for worker's rights.

So in these changes to National Insurance Contributions the new Conservative government has done more for workers rights then an entire army of Jeremy Corbyn supporters standing on a street corner endlessly chanting; "No Ifs. No Buts. No Tory Cuts."

The issue of National Insurance also brings me on to one of the bigger issues of the 2017 election campaign. Dubbed the; "Dementia Tax" this really covers all aspects of how we fund social care for particularly elderly people.

The UK economy has long relied on something known as the; "Population Pyramid." This sees a large base of young, healthy workers supporting a narrow tip of elderly non-workers who are often in poor health.

Like all insurance schemes National Insurance works by socialising risk. The large number of young healthy workers pay for the care of the small number of non-workers.

The problem is that falling birthrates and better healthcare means that this Population Pyramid is being replaced by more of a Population Square. The tip is now almost exactly the same size as the base.

This means that the risk is no longer socialised and means that rather than each paying a small amount the young, healthy workers are now having to almost entirely fund the care of an older non-worker on their own. This effectively means that the lives of the young are being destroyed to fund the luxury of the old.

The current model for funding in social care is that anyone with assets over £23,000 has to pay for their own care. The value of the person's home is not included in this calculation. However if having been assessed as paying for their care the person will have to end up selling their home to pay for that care.

Although all of the young are being crushed by this Population Square this system further unfairly punishes those from poorer backgrounds. Being able to afford accountants and lawyers the very wealthy tend to hide their assets in trusts meaning they don't have to fund their care. This allows them to pass those assets down to their children giving those children an unfair advantage over their less well off peers.

The Conservatives introduced a new policy that would see the threshold raised to £100,000 but with the value of the person's home included in the calculation. This shifts the balance of care funding away from the lower middle-classes onto the very wealthy. It would also ensure that first £100,000 would not be used to pay for care allowing more parents to pass down more money to more children creating a fairer society.

To see how good these new Conservative policies are you only need to look a who objected to them the most; The extreme wing of the Conservative Party that was represented by Cameron and Osborne.

This brings me on to the other big issue of the election. Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) - the Brexit.

The extreme wing of the Conservative Party want the hardest possible Brexit imaginable. Not only do they want to withdraw from the single market and the customs union they actually seem to want to break off all economic, social and political ties with Europe entirely.

With a small majority of just 17 the Conservatives were being forced to actually listen to these people in order to get them to support the government's position. The purpose of calling the 2017 General Election was to increase the Conservative majority allowing those voices to be ignored helping to secure a softer Brexit.

Unfortunately amid TV debates every other day that political reality seems to have been entirely lost on voters. So they have returned the worst result imaginable.

The Conservatives remain the largest party but only have 319 seats. This is seven short of the 326 seats they needs to secure a majority.

This would normally open the possibility that the opposition parties could form a coalition against the Conservatives. However combined Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Green Party only have 309 seats still leaving them far behind the Conservatives and a majority of 326.

It is possible that the Lib Dems could form a coalition with a majority of 5 with the Conservatives. However being so damaged by the 2010-2015 coalition they have campaigned on a pledge that they will not do that.

The only other possible outcome is that the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) form a coalition with a majority of 3.

In terms of Brexit this will be the worst possible outcome. On the issue of Brexit even the most extreme Conservatives seem like Remainers when compared with Northern Ireland's Unionists.

Therefore I think the only option is for the UK to call another General Election.

During that election the broadcast regulator OFCOM and the Electoral Commission really need to introduce restrictions on the number of debates that can be held as part of an election campaign.

The only thing that Britain seems to have proved today is that when faced with an uninformed electorate democracy fails.


10:20 on 9/6/17 (UK date).